Alternatively
by Rusty Fingers
Summary: The Doctor struggles to adjust to Rose's life and being human after Journey's End. With the Bad Wolf at his side, fiercer than he ever remembered her, he finds his way and that the path is not as slow as he might have imagined. Slightly out of canon.
1. One Small Step Forward

"Can ya," Rose hesitated, looking at the other Doctor. If it hadn't been for his blue suit, she wouldn't have been able to tell them apart. "Just take over for a mo," she finished, nodding at the console. He gave her a very Doctor smile and Rose wished she could return it when he did. Instead she turned and locked eyes with the Doctor in the brown suit, the one who held himself much less easily. She plucked at his sleeve as she left the console room and he turned to follow.

A step behind, he entered the pool room to find Rose with one trainer off, working on unlacing the other. He watched as she finished, rolled her pants up and sat on the edge to dip her feet in. "You never once went swimming in here," he commented off offhandedly, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall.

"I went skinny dipping in here all the time," Rose corrected, wiggling her toes in the pool's crystal blue water, "you were just never around when I did."

Much like Rose had moments earlier, the Doctor almost smiled. "What're we doing here?"

Leaning with both hands on the edge, Rose felt the agony that was pulsing through her very being start to show on her face. "I'm tryin' to pretend you're not about t'do exactly what ya said ya wouldn't the night we met Sarah Jane." The Doctor hung his head, crossed his arms more tightly about his chest.

When she looked over her shoulder a moment later, the Doctor saw that Rose's eyes were hard in her sorrow but free from even the threat of tears. "Can ya just tell me why?" She asked quietly, "'Cause I think you wanted it to be true when ya said it as badly as I did."

 _This is really seeing the future, you just leave us behind! Is that what you're going to do to me?_

 _No. Not you._

Silently, the Doctor unlaced his plimsolls, rolled up his own pants and slipped his feet into the water alongside Rose, their shoulders brushing. "There's something about the first face I see after a regeneration," he said softly, both of them looking at the water instead of each other. "That person means more...no, that's not it." he stopped himself, frowning, frustrated. He had seen Sarah Jane after a regeneration and he had still left her, though, he had never promised not to. The promise was the key.

Slowly, as if not trusting himself, the Doctor looked aside at her jeans, the hem of her blue jacket, her shoulder, the blonde locks he had come to love. When his eyes strayed to her lips, grazed her cheekbones, two of her most striking features, he started to shiver. It was her, there, with him, and his hearts ached.

"I said it...because I did want it to be true," he whispered, averting his eyes again. "Because the thought of losing you back then...and now, still tears me down," he ground out through clenched teeth, "in ways it never has, not for anyone else."

Rose stared hard at the water a moment then wet her lips and nodded once. "In your head, I'll always be here...with a part of you," she snapped her head aside to look at him as he did likewise, shock in his face that she had deduced his plan. "Give me some bloody credit," she scoffed, "s'not hard to figure, is it?" And it wasn't, especially not with the deep melancholy she saw upon finally meeting his eyes.

She brought a hand up to his cheek, stroked at his sideburn and knew the misery in his eyes was reflected in hers. Opening and closing his mouth several times, she knew he wanted to say something. Perhaps he wanted forgiveness, wanted her to better understand, wanted to tell her this would kill him too, just a little less than watching her die of old age. Perhaps he wanted to say all of those things and more, but Rose knew the Doctor had always been bad with words.

"S'ok," she said, her voice shakier than she wanted, "I always knew you were a bit of a coward," his eyes started to shine and she twitched the corner of her lip in an almost smile, "s'one of the little human things I always loved about you." She finished in a whisper as she pulled him onto a crushing hug, both burying their faces in one another's shoulders. Their hands gripped and wrung the fabric of each others jackets and neither could see if the other was crying, though they both were silently.

The Doctor strode into the console room, Rose on his heels, and threw a lever, flicked a switch, span a dial and kicked the console. The ship lurched as Rose walked to the console next to the Doctor and laid a hand on the glowing time rotor. In her mind she saw the stars returning for everyone else as they were extinguished for her, thinking, _last trip old girl_.

When they stepped out onto the beach, Jackie looked hopefully at her daughter but Rose had only eyes for the man in the brown suit. She tucked her hands into her jacket pockets and surveyed him as his twin stood to the side with Donna. Again, Rose would've liked to smile for him but some things you cannot grin and bear. Likewise, the Doctor looked his age, mirroring her with his hands in his pants pockets.

Standing there observing the two of them, the blue suited Doctor suddenly stood a little straighter, realization dawning on him. He looked to his left at Donna who just smiled at him and before he knew it she was hugging him. Everything that followed happened too fast, he was too tired to argue, to speak at all really. In Donna's arms he saw Rose step to the other Doctor and slip a hand to his chest.

It wasn't that Rose didn't know what to say once more, as the last time she had stood on that beach with him. It was that she finally appreciated that words had limits and what she felt for him could never be expressed adequately by them. Her hand fell from the Doctor's chest to clasp his fingers, she leaned into him and whispered, "run!"

A spark lit in the Doctor's eyes and he clenched his jaw before yelling, "Donna!" He crushed Rose's hand one last time and disappeared into the Tardis, the swirl of his brown jacket whipping through the door.

Donna tore from her twin Doctor and was in the Tardis in a heartbeat, her twin watching her, speechless.

Rose and the blue suited Doctor observed the Tardis departing before their eyes slowly drifted to one another. Before they could move or speak, Rose was beset upon by Jackie, the other woman sobbing on her chest how happy she was that Rose had stayed. The Doctor saw in the hollowness in Rose's expression, even as she hugged her mother, that choice had not played much part in her staying.

-#-

The walk from the beach was quiet. Jackie thought it an awkward silence and tried to break it every so often with inane comments or questions. The Doctor was, for his part, actually tired and too busy trying to figure out what this sensation was and how to cope with it to think of much else, which was in and of itself alarming to him. Too tired to think was not a state of being he had ever experienced. And Rose...Rose marched, the Doctor noted from the corner of his psyche. She had to be exhausted, much as he was, maybe more accustomed to it, having been human all her life. But she marched like a soldier with a pace that left her mother and the Doctor struggling to catch up to her at times.

A comm device on Rose's wrist would chatter every so often and once in a while she would lift it to her lips and answer, something clipped and carrying in the empty countryside. Within about an hour a zeppelin appeared on the horizon of the blackening sky. Rose typed at the comm device, spoke into it and the zeppelin honed in on them. This one being a Torchwood transport, a rope was lowered down to which a harness was attached and Rose wasted no time in fitting it about her mother's hips as naturally as if she were tying her laces.

"Could've waited on the beach for them to get us, couldn't we?" Jackie complained as Rose looked up into the blaring zeppelin spotlight and gave the all clear into her comm device.

"Yeah? And you wouldn't have been half frozen by the time they got there." She smiled genuinely but not broadly up at her mother, crossing her arms as her hair whipped about her face.

In that smile, the Doctor saw her age, her exhaustion. Even on their roughest adventures, Rose Tyler had always had a brilliant smile waiting for him. He realised then that he hadn't seen her smile properly since first seeing her in the street.

Jackie halfway to the zeppelin, Rose looked over at the Doctor. "How're you doing?"

He looked slowly down at her, wondering himself how he was doing, now that she'd asked. "Uhh, tired, I think, really, _reeeally_ tired."

Rose stepped in front of him, frowning in concentration as she gripped his wrist to feel his pulse, her other hand tilting his head toward the light to view his pupils. "Well, you've had a hell of a day for a newborn," she tilted his head side to side, still watching his eyes, before slipping her hand from his wrist to lace into his fingers, the hand at his jaw coming to rest on his shoulder. They gave one another the same weak smile as he gripped her fingers.

He should have felt overwhelmed by her presence, by what had happened, by the losses he had just suffered. But the Doctor was truly overwhelmed by his exhaustion, so much so that he only protested weakly when the harness returned and Rose began to clip him into it. "You should go first," he told her, a little surprised by her nonchalance at moving around some of his most intimate parts. The Rose he had lost at Canary Wharf would have blushed to be doing so, but not this woman.

"I always go last," Rose answered with a hard edge, looking briefly up into his eyes, before returning her attention to the harness.

"Why's that?" The Doctor asked quietly, grabbing onto the rope.

Rose looked up at him, finished, and brought the comm device to her lips. "Harness is locked, winch secured?"

" **Winch secured, Bad Wolf** ," the comm crackled.

"Ascension's a go," she responded into it. She gave the harness one last tug at the point where it ran across his hips. "I always go last, I get everyone out alive, 'cause that's what I do," Rose said to him matter of factly as he started to rise away from her. He couldn't quite be sure if the look on her face made him sad or proud as he slowly spun, drawing away from her.

When he made it into the zeppelin, uniformed Torchwood officers were on him immediately, unhooking the harness and drawing him aside, sending it back out the hatch and chattering on similar comm devices to Rose's. In short order, she was through the hatch as well and an officer pulled the rope to bring her over the floor. After that, though, there was no fussing as there had been for the Doctor. She promptly stripped the harness, hung it up and strode over to the controls of the ship.

The Doctor watched her brush her hair aside and slip a microphoned ear piece over her right ear before clattering at a keyboard. A man's face appeared on the screen in front of Rose, youngish with curly dirty blonde hair, a white lab coat visible about his shoulders. "Bad Wolf!" He exclaimed in obvious surprise.

"Hello Danny," Rose replied with another wane smile.

"We didn't expect you back, I mean, we thought-" Danny began to babble before Rose cut him off.

"Didn't expect to be back, Danny," Rose said a bit sharply, stopping Danny's mouth in a heartbeat.

The Doctor watched her at these words, the forced straightness of her shoulders and back, exuding a strength he suspected she didn't feel. _She hadn't expected to be back_ , he thought, _she expected to be at the controls of the Tardis, not this bloody ship_. He sighed. He felt the same.

Rose's gaze meandered between other screens which bracketed the main one Danny occupied and keyboards at her fingertips, her face never still long enough to betray anything to her co-worker. That wasn't uncommon for her, not in that place and time. "Update on Operation Black Sky," she commanded evenly, all emotion gone once more.

"Complete success," Danny jumped to supply, "planetary losses in the epsilon quadrant are reversing, the Horse Head Nebula is back in place, out by a par sec or so, but nothing big-"

"I want it monitored," Rose cut in, "a few planets a few parsecs out could create a Malo spatial anomaly that could wipe out the Milky Way. If that's gonna happen, I'd like to have a heads up."

The Doctor quirked a brow at her back. How did she know about Malo spatial anomalies?

"You've got it Bad Wolf. Operation Doctor, then, you found him?" Danny asked, a little hesitantly.

Rose met his eyes squarely and he looked away from the blackness in them before she answered. "The stars came back, yeah?"

Danny swallowed and nodded, only meeting her eyes briefly. "Anything else?" Rose shook her head. "Can I just say then...I think I speak for all of Torchwood when I say...I'm really glad you're back." He gave her genuine warmth in a smile that Rose couldn't return.

She used to smile easily. Instead she thanked Danny and cut the screen's link, letting her shoulder's hang a moment as she stripped the microphone from her ear and leaned heavily on the ship's console. No one else saw this but the Doctor and he made to rise from chair to go to her but she stood before he could, as thought the weight that had appeared on her shoulder's a moment ago was a figment of the Doctor's imagination.

Rose went and spoke to her mother, making certain she was comfortable, leaning against the seat in front of Jackie with her arms crossed. The Doctor, through his haze of exhaustion, watched her and thought how different she was. Running operations, directing personnel, worrying about hyperspace phenomena way beyond the ken of people of her time and place. He couldn't stop his eyes from drifting closed as he thought about this, his body mastering him in a way it had only ever done in a regeneration.

A few moments later, Rose looked up at the Doctor and laid a hand on her mother's shoulder, leaving her to walk to the Doctor's side. She knelt down on one knee beside him and watched the rise and fall of his chest, counting the breaths. Then she lifted a hand to his forehead, assessed his temperature, lowered her hand to his wrist, took his pulse again. Her medical field training told her that the human being in front of her was fine, her experience with the Doctor told her otherwise. The longest she had ever seen him close his eyes for was the time he had been knocked unconscious by a police goon in the fifties. The nights they had spent together on the couch in the Tardis library or in her bed, talking for half of it before sleep came to her, his eyes had always been open when hers closed and when hers opened again in the morning.

Remembering those simple sweet times they had lain in each other's arms, feeling the security of the Tardis about them, babbling into the small hours of the morning, Rose's heart ached in a strange way. That man was before her now, after so many years of sleeping alone. Her hand fell to his again and stayed there a while as she watched him, the zeppelin humming in her ears like the Tardis engines gone wrong.

-#-

She saw the lights of London before the radio chatter between the pilots and Torchwood's control tower picked up. Arms crossed, face turned toward the window, Rose should probably have been sleeping. She looked to her right, at her mother and the Doctor, both out like lights within minutes of their journey's start, then back to the window. She hadn't expected to be back, true, but Rose Tyler wasn't young and naïve, not anymore, not since losing the Doctor the first time, not since coming to this world where everything was almost the same. Almost. She was almost the same. But little things had changed. Her unshakable faith that things would work out in the end, fairytale-like, was gone. She still believed things would work out well enough, that was, she still hoped. Hope was a thing she maintained throughout all else, a lesson she took from the Doctor. Looking to her side again, she caught the Doctor's face in the growing lights of the city and smiled sadly.

If she was honest, this was exactly the type of thing Rose expected would happen, like their first farewell at Dårlig Ulv Stranden. Like being left at Aberdeen instead of Croydon. Life with and after the Doctor was not linear, sensible or fair. Life before him wasn't really either, perhaps you just noticed it more in his absence. Rose bit back a sigh, keeping her emotions in check having become a sad second nature to her in order to build up her reputation at Torchwood. No, she hadn't thought she would be back here, but she hadn't felt with rock solid certainty before she left that she would be out amongst the stars with him again, either. That was why she hadn't made arrangements for her flat and her things.

When she had left her universe, Rose Tyler hadn't known a thing for certain. She had hoped she would find the Doctor, prevent the darkness and that she would stay with him once she had. She shrugged to herself in her seat as the pilot looked over his shoulder at her and announced they were landing. All three of those hopes had been realised, after a fashion. But as she looked at the sleeping Doctor, Rose felt Time and Space, the only two gods she recognised these days, having a right good fucking laugh at her expense.

-#-

Rose had to shake the Doctor quite forcefully to get him to wake, so deep was his slumber. He looked up at her blinking and she gave him a small smile, none of her brilliant teeth peeking through, but enough. "We're landing," she said simply. The Doctor nodded, blinked some more, yawned, stretched and generally felt his systems coming back online, if begrudgingly so. Flipping a blanket aside he didn't remember placing over himself, the Doctor stood and wobbled. Rose caught him in an instant, steadied him as they walked toward the official entry and exit, a door with stairs cut into it that dropped down from the zeppelin cockpit's side.

The Doctor looked around, at the black of the night made too bright by blinding spot lights around Torchwood's air pad. They descended but Rose turned back at the foot of the stairs as one of the pilots called out.

"Bad Wolf, we haven't heard from Tin Dog. Should we keep on a delta rotation until we have word or-"

"No," Rose cut him off, the slight frown on her face easily if incorrectly attributed to the wind whipped up by the zeppelin. "Tin Dog is out, permanently. I'll be in touch with Secondary Operations about his replacement."

The pilot looked at her a second longer than he should have.

"He's not dead, Josh, he's just not coming back," Rose half-clarified to soften the blow. "Just tell everyone he's not coming back. I'll be 'round Secondary to explain it all, probably by Tuesday."

The pilot, Josh, nodded abruptly and ducked back into the cockpit, not wanting to risk his boss's understanding flashing to anger as could easily happen if things moved too slow. Everyone knew anyway, that if anyone had a right to mourn Tin Dog's loss, it was Bad Wolf.

Rose turned away just as quickly, not looking at either her mother or the Doctor, her face hard. The Doctor watched her out of the corner of his eye, knowing who she and Josh had been speaking of, realising for the first time that Rose hadn't quite expected to be saying goodbye to Mickey when he left the Tardis that evening. Rose didn't falter when speaking of him, her voice didn't catch. She could've been speaking about a piece of equipment going down for all the emotion she showed. _That's new_ , The Doctor thought.

"Pete!" Jackie cried out, spotting the red head exiting a limousine 20 feet ahead of them and breaking into a run.

The Doctor looked aside at Rose who just stuffed her hands into her jacket and continued at the same pace.

Jackie and Pete hugged fiercely, the latter mumbling things along the lines of 'you stupid cow' into his wife's shoulder. Rose and the Doctor waited a moment after reaching them before they parted. Pete looked at Rose and the Doctor was struck by how similarly they wore their expressions, like masks.

"Wasn't expecting to see you again," Pete said more coolly than the Doctor expected.

"Gonna have t'change my codename, aren't we? 'Thought you was gone,' 'Wasn't expectin' ya,'" Rose mused, "not quite the same oomf as Bad Wolf." She didn't look amused. Neither did Pete.

The ginger looked to the Doctor. "Definitely wasn't expectin' you."

The Doctor looked askance at Pete, at the almost hungry gleam in the other man's eyes as he said _you_. "Long story," he said cagily, though airily. He needed to get his bearings in this place. He needed to talk to Rose and figure out what the hell was going on with Pete. She clearly wasn't at ease with him.

"Yeah an' one I'm really not keen to get into at three in the morning after the day we just had," Rose interjected quickly.

"Do you wanna come back to the house sweetheart?" Jackie asked hopefully. "There's room for the Doctor there."

Rose shook her head, "nah, I wanna go home." She looked aside at the Doctor, considering him for a second. "You could go to the mansion, with mum," she began, being deliberate in choosing the word _mansion_ over _house_ , "there's the cells at Torchwood, bunks are comfy enough, or there's my place." She said all of this without blushing, without a hint of her preference.

The Doctor found his inability to read her unsettling but his mind and his heart had only one answer. "With you," he said instantaneously, then paused, "I mean, your place, that is, if...if you're okay with that." He finished and swallowed, frowning at his lack of eloquence.

Rose nodded, "It's just the couch, is all-"

"I love couches," the Doctor cut in quickly, ruffling his hair, "my best mate is a couch, well, I say best mate, good friend, known her for ages." He smiled broadly at Rose and was pleased when he saw it returned in her eyes if nowhere else.

"Right," Rose said, turning from him. "Alistair! I need a lift back to Primary Ops.," Rose called over to a man in black Torchwood gear who nodded at her in return. She hugged her mother and nodded stiffly at Pete, "I'll be in day after tomorrow."

"Bringin' him with you, then?" Pete asked, nodding at the Doctor.

"His choice," Rose responded, the Doctor being otherwise engaged in a bone-crushing hug from Jackie.

"I'm so glad you're here, sweetheart," Jackie whispered to the Doctor and he didn't know what to say in response. He smiled at her and turned to follow Rose, grateful to escape Jackie and Pete and Torchwood, to get some bloody distance and spend a quiet moment with the only person he really wanted to see just then.

Alistair saluted Rose, "nice to see you again, Bad Wolf."

"And you, Alistair," Rose replied, not without a little warmth, wasting no time in climbing into the black Jeep.

The ride to Canary Wharf was quick that time of night and Rose and the Doctor were soon climbing into another black Jeep, shiny instead of matte, and setting off into the night, alone for the first time.

The Doctor watched her manoeuvre the brute of a vehicle with grace, her eyes focused on the road, still not looking tired somehow. "You drive a Jeep," was the first coherent question that came to his mouth.

Rose almost smiled again. "I like to be prepared." To drive her point home, Rose looked from side to side before driving the vehicle up and over the barrier that diverted traffic left or right and prevented direct crossings. "Short cut."

The Doctor raised a brow at her, a manic smile creeping into his features in approval.

"They all call you _Bad Wolf_."

"Code names're a bit of a thing at Torchwood," Rose offered dismissively.

"Yeeeaah," the Doctor conceded, "but...whotsit, Josh and Alistair, they probably have code names and no one used them."

"I don't like being called 'Tyler' much here," She replied, tone hard again, near angry.

He thought about this for a moment, deciding what question to ask next, whether or not he wanted to draw that anger out to see where it came from. "You know all their names," he said instead, softly, a little in awe of her.

Rose shifted down, turned a corner, "if I'm gonna ask people to die for me, I like to know their names." Said without hesitation, a truth.

He didn't know what to say to that.

The silence didn't last long, what with a few more shortcuts, the Doctor soon recognised they were on Clifton Parade. "Don't tell me you live at the ol' Powell Estates!"

Rose smiled genuinely for the first time but it quickly dropped from her lips. "Nah, close by though. Got a flat near Mickey's gran's place when I first came here, bit more posh than the Estate."

He followed her, up seven flights of stairs from the garage, feeling every step though she didn't seem to, to a door, number 723. It was remarkably ordinary, he thought. Just a flat, near the estate she had grown up on.

 _No_ , he reminded himself, _she didn't grow up here, that was another universe and nothing about this is ordinary, not for her, not the way you think it is._

Flicking on the lights, Rose immediately went to a laptop on a sideboard in between the bedroom door and the kitchen. The Doctor looked around as he closed the door. It was small, the kitchen open to the living room with just a small grey couch and telly, a small table between the two. On either side of this main room were a bathroom and bedroom. That was it. It was mostly white, small splashes of colour here or there, a few photos in frames around the TV stand and on the living room table. He picked up a few and looked at Rose in them, trying to find the young woman who had first travelled with him. There was one of her and Jackie, one of her and Mickey. In both she was smiling, or, what passed for a smile. There were no hints of the brilliant grin he knew she was capable of.

The last two photos were of a small blonde boy, almost a baby still, and Rose. In these, with that boy, she grinned like he remembered and he found himself grinning right back at the Rose in those photos.

"Ya hungry?" She called to him, snapping the laptop shut and looking over at him.

He set the photo down and turned to her then looked blankly down at his stomach. "Yeeeaaaah, yep, think I am."

She quirked a brow at him. "Not sure?"

He wrinkled his nose, "never _had_ to eat, not really, never been _hungry_ in the human sense of the word. But I feel kinda...empty, like I've got a little _Sonta Pelush_ gnawing at my tummy. What'dya think? Is that what hungry feels like?"

Rose smiled quickly before it faded. "Dunno about the _Sonta Pelush_ part but the rest sounds about right." She walked to the kitchen and opened the fridge, grimacing at its contents. Binning most of it, she turned to the freezer and smiled.

Rose flicked on the oven before turning back to find the Doctor watching her with interest. "I need a shower," she proclaimed, "when the oven 'dings' put those in."

The Doctor looked at the small box on the counter she had pointed at before continuing to peruse Rose's flat. She was quicker than he'd thought she'd be, than he remembered her ever being on the Tardis. He couldn't help it when a small smile slid onto his lips at the sight of her in a loose long sleeved t-shirt and baggy pj bottoms, her damp hair hanging in strings.

When she pulled the food out of the oven, he tutted at her. "Really Rose, Fish fingers?"

"And custard," she said brightly, adding a carton from the fridge to the table.

"Your obsession with chips was bad enough, this is..." He waved at the fare, his expression bemused.

She swatted at him. "Shut up. I keep this stuff around for Tony, and lucky for us it'd outlast a nuclear winter, yeah?"

They went out to the walkway steps to eat in the night air, a little cooler than the Doctor would have liked, he realised with a bit of a shock, but still tolerable. Rose seemed to enjoy it, he thought, as he watched her dipping her fish fingers in the custard. She noticed him and raised her brows before taking another languishing bite. "Don't knock it 'till you've tried it."

He scrunched his nose again and ate the fish fingers sans custard, looking out at London's lights, hearing London's sounds and feeling vaguely at home. That was another shock. London, The Powell Estate particularly, had a homey feel to him.

Setting her plate on the step above them, Rose took a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from her pajama pockets and lit one with such finesse the Doctor stared at her for a solid minute before turning away. She hadn't noticed.

"You smoke?" He asked, the question clear and innocent in his voice.

Rose exhaled a stream of smoke, ran her free hand through her half-dry hair. "Picked it up when I was trying to find you. Keeps you warm on the long hauls, when the jump lands you four hours from the nearest town, say."

He turned his old eyes to meet hers and saw the age that had accumulated there in kind.

"Takes the edge off, too," she added quietly. He didn't ask what brought on the edge. He had ideas but didn't really want to know right then.

The Doctor bit viciously into a fish finger and wondered just how he had changed the woman who sat next to him. They sat in silence while she finished the fag and he polished off a bowl of custard, both staring out into the city and thinking about the days to come.

Rose hugged the Doctor before she went to her room and they gripped one another as fiercely as they had ever done after any adventure that had almost seen them separated. He knew when she drew him into the embrace that that she was stronger than he was or would ever be again. Whatever Rose Tyler had become, Bad Wolf was fitting. She was a force of nature, more than he had ever felt her to be before.

-#-

He awoke with her on the phone to her mother, telling the older woman she would have to see if he was up for it or not. From the couch, a leg hanging out from the covers, his hair sticking up in more directions than usual, the Doctor watched with bleary eyed fascination as Rose slipped a holster over her shoulders and clipped it around her rib cage. She ran a finger along a plain stretch of wall beside the door and a small compartment opened from which she withdrew a small, blocky blaster, slipped it into the holster under her left arm.

"You carry a gun?" He asked, his voice rougher and more unfamiliar than he had ever heard it.

Rose looked over at him. "I carry two," she said matter of factly, reaching back into the compartment to remove a snub nosed disruptor, no bigger than a pair of brass knuckles. She hauled up a pant leg and forced the weapon into a leg holster.

"That was mum," she carried on, ignoring the Doctor's gobsmacked expression, "she wants us over for tea tonight. I told her I'd see how you were feelin', budge up." Rose pushed him a little to the side to sit on the sofa, flicking on the telly with a remote and switching to a channel that was flashing all sorts of radio frequency signals, sonar blips and infrared scans.

"Oh God, tea with your mother," the Doctor began, drawing the blanket around his lower half before becoming distracted by the signals on the TV.

"I know," Rose said, equally distracted, "domestic. You don't have to go."

"Is that an X-ray orthomorphic field display?" The Doctor asked, leaning in as Rose had done.

"Mmm, monitoring Q-space near the Horse Head Nebula."

Patting his chest for the spectacles he soon realised were still in the suit he had hung in the bathroom last night, the Doctor continued to peer in fascination. "Not your standard package, then?" He nodded at the screen.

Rose flicked the TV off and ran a hand through her hair, looking up at the Doctor as she did so. "Had Danny configure it, easier'n turning on the laptop at the end of a long day."

He raised a brow at her. "Blimey, you must have some long days."

She smiled at him, still no teeth, but a good Rose Tyler smile. He grinned at her.

"You look all...ready to go. Are you going somewhere?" He inquired.

"Got a call from work, signal picked up from the lambda sector. Probably nothing but Matt asked if I'd have a go at translatin' it." Rose sighed and leaned back into the couch, stretching so her belly was visible between her t-shirt and jeans. "I think he just wants to make sure I'm really still here," she groaned through her stretch.

Withdrawing his eyes from her midriff, the Doctor nodded. "Sounds like the boys at Torchwood like you."

"They do. The ones that don't at least respect me, s'all I need."

He grinned at her again. "So, what'dya think? Bring-your-Doctor-to-work day?"

Rose became all seriousness again in an instant, sitting up and looking at him square in the eyes. "Torchwood has files and files on you, people've been talkin' about you for years, none more'n Pete. I'm not sure how you'll be treated there by some of 'em, like a person...or an asset."

"I can take care of myself," the Doctor said calmly, his expression as serious as Rose's.

She looked at him a moment. "I know you can. M'just givin' you the lay of the land."

He returned her silent gaze. "Tell me about Pete."

Rose inhaled steadily. "He'll want you to join Torchwood. No question."

"Should I?" He expected her to bite her lip or chew a nail, expressions of hers that used to be marks of uncertainty. Instead he had to find it in her eyes and even then, he couldn't be sure what he saw there.

"It's your life-"

"Rose-"

"You could work for UNIT-"

"Rose..."

There was background she clearly didn't want to divulge to him and he didn't know why. He hoped it wasn't owing to a lack of trust but he didn't discount the possibility.

"If you could have me anywhere, where would it be?" He asked softly.

Rose looked at him deeply then and he knew there was pain in her eyes, though she hid it quickly. _I would have you in the Tardis, with me_ , Rose thought and for second she couldn't think of anything more truthful. Then it occurred to her. "I'd have ya safe," she whispered to him.

He leaned in then. "Isn't Torchwood safe?" A fierceness flashed in his eyes, more akin to his former self's icy granite glare than anything.

Her full lips pursed a second before Rose shook her head. She looked down to the comm device on her wrist, its display a watch face. "I should get goin.'"

The Doctor sat back and exhaled. "Can I come with you?" He asked simply. She looked aside at him, weighing things. "It's just...first day here and all...If I don't have to be without you I'd... I'd rather..."

Rose nodded after a moment. "Yeah. Get dressed quick then." She rubbed her forehead after he'd left the couch and stared at the empty TV screen. "This mean you'll come to tea?" She called over her shoulder after a few minutes.

Silence. Then, "guess so," muffled from behind the bathroom door. She smirked.

Upon his return, Rose stood and pulled on her black leather jacket. As they walked down the stairs, she looked him over. "We need to take you shopping today, get you some clothes, toothbrush an the like."

The Doctor looked at his suit, a little wrinkled and singed from the previous days excursion. "Quite right."

-#-

Torchwood tower. It made his teeth itch to be there again. He tried to be distracted, by Rose and the way all the burly men and women in full kit beamed at her before saluting her. Like a hero. _Well deserved_ , he thought. He tried to be distracted by the way she glared at anyone who questioned who he thought he was, without any ID, to be just wandering around Torchwood, and made them cower. He tried to be distracted by the amazing things the institution seemed to be developing and utilizing largely, it seemed, under her guidance. He tried to just be amazed by her brilliance.

But he couldn't get over it.

Rose stopped before they entered a room labelled Signals and Processing, a hand on his chest to hold him back. "You all right?"

"Fine."

She peered up into his face. "You're glarin.'"

He thought about this and realised he was, had been, ever since they came here. "Sorry," he said quietly, softening his features. He gave her a small smile.

Rose wasn't placated but she looked away and slid her hand along the wall beside the door. It opened and allowed her access. They met Matt who nearly hugged Rose in his excitement to see her before Rose's expression drew him up short and she indicated he should be quick.

The Doctor watched her listen to audio of a language he understood well, watched her have Matt rewind it several times in key places, her brow raising a little each time, a smile threatening her lips. She looked over at the Doctor, at the smile mirrored on his face, before turning back to Matt. "It's an advert."

Matt looked surprised, his brows raising.

"For Rookshyakop, like a...delicacy? On Binyos Five. That signals old, must've come, what, equivalent of 2700 years away?"

Matt was typing up her assessment. "Sometimes I think she makes half this up...

"If only," the Doctor said quietly, wondering at Rose's linguistic ability.

The door hissed open and a young man peered through. He also grinned at Rose. "Hello Bad Wolf. I'm sorry to interrupt but Mr. Tyler is requesting your-" The young man paused when his eyes found the Doctor and he swallowed. The Doctor raised a brow at him. Rose clenched her jaw to hold back a smile. "Your companion join him top floor," the young man continued after a beat.

Rose looked over at the Doctor. "Principals office, young man."

He grinned at her. "Love getting in trouble my first day." They both stood. "Lead on..."

"Peter," Rose supplied for the Doctor.

"Lead on Peter!" The Doctor exclaimed.

Peter blushed, smiled and looked away. "Bad Wolf should be able to take you."

The Doctor shrugged, stuffed his hands into his pockets and left the room. Rose followed shortly after a brief exchange with Matt.

"Peter," the Doctor called after the retreating figure, causing Peter to turn and regard him. "What's your codename?"

The young man swallowed, his blush intensifying. "Blue Turtle."

The Doctor hummed in interest, then grinned.

"I think Peter fancies you," Rose said with amusement by his side as they began to follow in the young man's wake.

The Doctor watched Peter's back a moment before replying. "He's not half-bad looking himself." Then he frowned at himself. "Did I just say that? Did I just _think_ that?" He looked at Rose, at the mirth he suspected she was carefully hiding.

"Wouldn't be the fist bloke you've fancied," was her only reply.

"Yeah, but-" The Doctor began but stopped. True, noticing men was nothing new for him but having a purely physical response to the appearance of _anyone_ hadn't happened since...ever. He brought up a hand to rub at the hair at the base of his neck in slight agitation. Rose raised a brow at him in question but he merely shook his head. He didn't know what to say to her about the...very human thing that had just happened to him.

"I'll take you to his office but m'not stayin'. You gonna be okay?" Rose asked as they rode the lift.

The Doctor leaned against the lift wall, arms crossed against his chest. "Has Pete developed the ability to spit fire since I last saw him?" He raised a brow behind his specs, frowning slightly.

Rose didn't flinch from his gaze and he was slightly unsettled at how well she could hide what she was feeling, what she was thinking, from him. There was a time when the psychic connection between them had them sharing so much and now he could only guess.

"Pete n'I have different ideas of what Torchwood should be...what Torchwood could be."

"Difference of opinion is hardly a reason to treat your father the way you do," the Doctor countered.

"He's not my father," Rose said evenly, leaving the Doctor unsure what to ask or say. She stepped to within an inch of him, her eyes serious as they had been that morning when she spoke of Torchwood and alluded to its dangers. "Whatever else, don't forget that. My father?" She emphasised these two words, "died November 7th, 1987."

The Doctor gave her a curt nod, his eyes still attempting to appraise her. A man Rose emphatically did not want to be associated with. What kind of man must that be, he wondered.

The lift dinged, the doors opened and the Doctor's teeth itched worse than ever. He looked over at Rose and saw reflected in her eyes what he knew must be in his. No wonder she didn't want to stay.

He looked into the office that occupied the whole of the top of Torchwood Tower and memories came unbidden. It had been remodelled drastically, carpets put in, some walls torn down and some windows and furnishings added. But the wall he faced as he stepped from the lift, regardless of the new windows, sat opposite a wall in another dimension. A dimension where he had lain his face against that wall, felt the last whispers of the person who had promised never to leave after being separated from them by impassible distances and spaces. The lift dinged, the doors closed and the Doctor felt Rose leave him again. His heart raced, his palms sweat. He felt very human.

Swallowing, the Doctor strode lazily toward the desk, toward the former dimension barrier, and the man who sat there. "Hallo Pete!" He said brightly. "Just met another Peter, calls himself Blue Turtle, hell of a name, innit? What's your Torchwood nickyity-nick-name, then?" He grinned to hide the nausea he felt creeping up.

Pete didn't smile. "I don't need a nick name here, do I? I'm Pete Tyler. They call me anything they call me 'Boss'."

The Doctor raised a brow but didn't respond on that front. "Love what Rose's done with the place. Making leaps and strides with her, aren't you?" He prodded for information underhandedly.

"Suppose we are," Pete allowed grudgingly.

"So...who's in charge?" The Doctor inquired innocently. It was a very open question, could've been taken any number of ways.

"I am," Pete said sharply, anger sparking in his eyes at any insinuation otherwise.

The Doctor grinned at him, thinking of all of the people he had met at Torchwood so far, how they said Bad Wolf like the name of a vengeful God who was on their side and how Rose knew every one of their names. "'Course you are," The Doctor said. Pete was obviously sore about his not-daughter's presence, but recognised her usefulness. That was where he would fit, too, the Doctor guessed.

"And I want you to work for us," Pete continued, taking command of the conversation as the Doctor had expected.

"No wooing? Not even a drink!" The Doctor joked, rocking on his heels.

"We can pay you better'n UNIT, can't we? The UN's useless these days, completely underfunded." Pete countered. "Our facilities outmatch theirs, no question."

"Yeah," the Doctor conceded, distracted from unpleasant memories of the room, just a bit. "Could go work for the States, or Germany, love Germany. Bet both of them have some pretty wizard facilities devoted to watching the skies," the Doctor shrugged.

Pete raised a brow at him, a pleased smile drawing up a corner of his mouth. "Yeah, you could.  
But you won't."

The Doctor stopped rocking, his smile fading to something much more menacing. "So sure are you?" He said softly. He gave Pete credit for not flinching under his gaze.

Pete stood, removed a package labelled 'special personnel' from his desk drawer and dropped it heavily on the desk in front of the Doctor. "You're not going anywhere without Rose. Rose isn't going anywhere without her mother an' brother." His smile faded to a wolfish sneer. "No, you're not going anywhere, Doctor."

The Doctor picked up the file, tucked it in the crook of his arm, his eyes never leaving Pete's. "Picked a hell of an office," he said quietly before slapping on a manic grin. "You've won me over, Pete! But reeeaally, be careful what you ask for. I would raise my insurance if I were you. I'm a bloody walking hazard."

Behind the Doctor's grin was a warning Pete couldn't mistake. The ginger watched the Doctor's back as he walked away, stood at the lift a moment. Their eyes met one last time and the Doctor's grin was gone. They stared one another down for the second it took the doors to close, animosity bristling between them.

-#-

The lift opened and the Doctor looked up to find Rose looking up to him in the same instant. He had to catch the door to stop it from closing so long did they stand there fixed by one another's gaze. Exiting, file under his arm, Rose fell instep beside him as they left Torchwood's benign glass front doors.

"Can see why you hate his office," the Doctor said quietly aside to her.

Rose simply raised a hand and rubbed his back briefly, a motion of solidarity, in recognition of shared remembrance.

"You signed up then?" She asked, noting the file.

The Doctor sniffed in slight distaste, looking at the file as well. "Look at that, 'special personnel.' Pete thinks I'm special!" He grinned at her.

Rose bumped him with her shoulder. "I was special personnel too. Just means we have no idea what the hell t'do with you just yet, ya wierdo from another dimension."

He looked aside at her before she left him for the other side of the jeep, looking for her smile again and again not finding it. She was amused, certainly, but guarded in a way he was sure she never had been before.

They drove to a few different shops, Rose pointing out some things she thought he might look good in. He rejected the first two outright but found a few suits he thought he could stand in the third, along with some jeans and t-shirts, the selection of which caused Rose to raise her brow at him in surprise. She wondered if he was that different from the Doctor or if it was simply that the Doctor's fashion habits had changed since she'd seen him last.

Her radiant smile and laugh threatened to break through a few times as she sat watching him rip out of dressing rooms in various outfits, some silly, some serious, striking outlandish poses worthy of the snootiest models. A few of them made her swallow as she realised how sexy he was. _Still Foxy_ , she thought, a little amused. She helped him pick out ties and reminded him to get some underclothes, some pajamas and a jacket.

She frowned at the black wool coat he eventually decided on, slimming, cut to a length in between that of his favoured brown coat and the leather jacket she had first known him in.

"What d'you think?" He asked, noting her expression.

Rose snapped out of it. "It'll look good casual or with a suit. It works."

He looked at her a moment longer and she nodded, then plucked at the sleeve to move him toward the checkout.

The Doctor watched with mild curiosity as the figures multiplied on the register, leaning with an arm on the counter. He looked at the the teller, nonplussed, when she asked how they'd be paying.

"Riiight, money," he said, standing up and looking at the woman, slightly perplexed.

Rose handed her credit card over the Doctor and he followed her movements, ending up back focused on her. Rose looked at him, eventually shook her head. "What?"

He opened his mouth to respond and failed.

"That was a lot of digits," he finally managed as they deposited a heap of bags in the back of the jeep.

"Middling," Rose accepted, unperturbed.

The Doctor fidgeted a bit, frowning at the windscreen as they drove off. "I can pay you back with my shiny new Torchwood earnings," he smiled over at her.

Rose shrugged. "Think of it as payback for all your Tardis hospitality."

"Weeell, if we were gonna do that we should really pay her back. That was the Tardis, not me, technically, and-"

"Shut up," Rose stopped him. "It's fine, s'not like I'm spending it on much of anythin' else."

The Doctor wondered at this, at what her life was really like in this universe. Had he seen it all? The pictures she kept were of her family and Mickey. Did Rose have friends, go out on the town? Did she take vacations? It was beginning to look as though she worked, worked, saw her family and worked. Oh, and occasionally marched across parallel worlds to find a useless sod who couldn't even pay for his own knickers.

-#-

The Mansion was best described by the series of not-quite-words the Doctor coined during the not insignificant time it took them to traverse the driveway. "Blimey! They moved to a _bigger_ place?" He asked, eyeing the monstrous structure.

Rose shrugged again. "Pete thought they needed more space what w'Tony an' all."

The Doctor shrugged. He was wearing a new brown suit with a t-shirt. Brand new white plimsolls completed his look and Rose found herself somewhat relieved at his choice of jacket. Just different enough.

Jackie hugged them both for inordinate amounts of time, fussing over them. Pete did not appear to greet them.

"Where's Tony?" Rose inquired, looking about her mother's feet.

Jackie put her hands on her hips. "You upset him, you did, tellin' him you was leaving and never coming back. He's barely left his room since."

Rose sighed and looked up the massive staircase to the second level. She looked aside at the Doctor and he saw a weight on her again, just for a second, before she reached for his hand. A little surprised, he took it after a moment's hesitation and they climbed the stairs.

"You told him you weren't coming back?" He asked, inwardly marvelling at the feel of her fingers in his.

"I didn't want him to be waitin' on me. That's a terrible feeling to hold onto for your life, innit? That someone might come back." She looked at him and he understood her comment not as an accusation, but as a fact he could appreciate from his own experience.

She stopped outside a brightly painted door, her hand parting from the Doctor's. She leaned on the door and tapped at the comm device that never left her wrist, brought it to her lips. "This is Bad Wolf to Crispy Ant, Bad Wolf to Crispy Ant," she smiled over her shoulder at the Doctor and his heart clenched at how near it was to the old Rose, "why've you not reported for rations?"

They heard scrabbling from the other side of the door, a loud thump, followed by a very young voice on the comm. " **Wose**?"

There was so much hope and longing and love in that mangled version of Rose's name that the Doctor found himself instantly commiserating with the child.

Rose smiled a bit sadly and leaned against the door, staring into the space in front of her as she responded. "I told you to take care of Black Pot, how comes I hear you've been neglecting your mission?"

The Doctor mouthed 'Black Pot' at Rose to which she mouthed back 'Jackie,' making him grin, before Tony answered. " **But I missed you!** " Came the petulant, heartbreaking reply.

Rose cracked the door in a second and looked in on her brother, smiling bitter sweetly herself at the small boy sitting on the floor in little robot print pajamas. "I missed you too, Crispy Ant."

"WOSE!" The boy launched himself at her and the Doctor look on in wonder as Rose bent down, picked Tony up and spun him about. She was smiling, like she used to, all teeth and high cheek bones, making satisfied noises in her chest like the Doctor remembered her making when they hugged.

Tony looked like he was about to break into a tirade at his sister when he caught sight of the Doctor over her shoulder and promptly buried his face into her hair. "Unknown Enty, unknown enty!" He whispered.

Rose turned to the Doctor and grinned, pressed a kiss into her brother's hair. "Got that, unknown _Entity_? Identify yourself," she said matter of factly. When the Doctor was slow to answer, grinning stupidly at her as he was, she reached out and poked him hard in the stomach.

"Owohyeah, right, I'm...um, do I have to use a code name?" He asked Rose with distaste on his features.

She tilted her head at him, signifying in no uncertain terms that the question was the stupidest one he had ever asked, considering the name he had chosen, the name he kept hidden and the alias he was fond of.

He shrugged, then looked at her and the child in her arms hard, making decisions that seemed too big for the moment. "I'm John," he decided finally. When Tony looked over his shoulder at the Doctor, he found the man grinning.

"Is he safe?" Tony asked Rose, looking up at her.

She didn't hesitate. "He's the safest," and she handed Tony to the Doctor.

The second Tony reached up to steady himself with small hands around the Doctor's neck, their skin touching, a powerful psychic connection formed. The Doctor hugged Tony to his chest a moment, feeling the bond like an anchor, before pulling back and grinning wildly at the boy again. "Hallo!" He said excitedly.

"Hello!" Tony grinned, "d'you want t'see my spaceships?"

"Ooh, I love spaceships! Can I see your spaceships?" The Doctor replied enthusiastically.

Rose, Tony and the Doctor played with spaceships on the floor of his bedroom for a spell. The Doctor bounced around the sizeable room, making every kind of incredible sound as the toy in his hand blurred about. Tony followed and the two of them fell off the bed and rolled across the floor in fits of laughter, their ships bouncing into one another. Rose acted as controller, calling out routes and warnings and sightseeing information along the lines of 'on your right hand side you will see the ignoble planet Clom' but generally watching the Doctor interact with her brother.

The Doctor collapsed, panting, on the floor next to Rose on the bed, Tony on his chest.

"Wanna see my favwite?" Tony asked, oblivious to how he constricted his new friend's breathing.

"I really do," The Doctor responded breathlessly, throwing a smile up to Rose as Tony dashed to his cupboard. "How do humans keep up with their offspring?" He panted, earning a small laugh from Rose.

Tony plonked back on the Doctor's chest and held up his prized toy. The Doctor froze, his face draining of expression. "That's a spaceship?" He asked quietly.

Tony nodded earnestly. "It's disguised!"

Taking the small blue box gingerly into his hands, the Doctor regarded it thoughtfully a moment before looking up at Rose. "Did your sister make this for you?"

"It's her favwite, too," Tony replied.

Rose nudged the Doctor with her toe, smiled warmly at him before she left the bed in response to her mother's calls. He looked back the child, then the tiny Tardis lovingly constructed from cardboard and painted with water colours. He grinned.

-#-

Rose called the boys down with her comm.

" **John and Crispy Ant here, Bad Wolf, ETA two minutes** ," the Doctor responded. Rose smiled at the comm.

With a loud 'ZOOOM!' the Doctor ran with Tony on outstretched arms into the dining room and beyond into the kitchen, the boy adopting a superman pose. "Sccrrrch!" The Doctor intoned as they stopped before the sink. Rose watched the Doctor murmuring to her brother, the child kneeling on the counter before him, as they lathered their hands with soap, washed and dried them. Hauling Tony up onto his chest, the Doctor grinned at Rose as he walked back into the dining room, depositing the boy on a chair.

"Uh uh, no feet," the Doctor said, getting Tony to sit properly in his booster seat.

He sat next to Rose and beamed in response to her smile.

His first bite into dinner was understandably tentative. "Mmm," he murmured in surprise, looking aside at Rose.

"They got a cook," she whispered in explanation of edibleness of the meal.

The Doctor nodded, examining his forkfull. "Brilliant."

-#-

Rose found the Doctor and Tony asleep on the couch in the room she thought of as the greenhouse for all of its windows. The boy was curled up at the Doctor's side, the Doctor was stretched out, a hand hanging over the couch with the tiny Tardis clutched in it, the other arm slung over Tony. She stared down at the two of them feeling easier than she could remember feeling in years. Reaching down, she brushed the Doctor's hair before gripping a hunk of it and giving it a tug.

He awoke with a sharp inhalation and stared up at Rose in confusion before looking down at the small human. He looked back up at her. "Fell asleep."

"Can't get nothin' past you," Rose teased.

Groaning a little, the Doctor gripped Tony in one arm and sat them both up and off the couch. They walked from the room through the dark of the rest of the mansion, up the stairs and to his room. Laying him on the bed, the Doctor stepped aside and let Rose change him back into his robot pajamas. Sitting beside the child, Rose leaned down and kissed his forehead, let her face linger above her brothers a minute before she withdrew.

The Doctor flicked off the light and Rose closed the door behind them. Their shoulders touched as they walked down the stairs.

-#-

Rose gave the Doctor a long hard look before she left him with Peter for a proper tour of Torchwood's facilities. He grinned in return, not wanting her to worry about him.

"I'll find ya for lunch, yeah?" She asked.

"Sounds good," he murmured.

He watched her disappear into the lift before turning to Peter. "Bring it on, Blue Turtle."

"You don't have to call me that," the young man replied, indicating he'd prefer to be called anything but.

The Doctor sniffed and looked around, following behind Peter and half listening to him. Rose had left him in her junior's care because, as she bluntly put it, she had more important things to do. Peter got the Doctor's biometrics encoded at the front desk so he could do the hand-slidey-door-openy trick, as the Doctor called it.

They went beyond what looked like metal detectors, but which Peter explained actually checked for a number of things, the least of which was not whether or not you were human. Upon saying this, Peter lost the Doctor as he went back to look at the metal tubes, his glasses perched on his nose. He wondered, then, just how human his physiology was.

A second set of offices saw the Doctor introduced to the Comm People and he was handed a device similar to Rose's. He raised a brow at it's inelegant design and failed to slip it onto his wrist.

"Did you come through from another universe, John? Like Bad Wolf did?" Peter asked in a quiet moment on the lift. He looked hesitantly at the Doctor who regarded him closely for a moment.

"Seems to me... _Bad Wolf_ ," the Doctor said the codename with some distaste, "keeps pretty mum about a lot of things, am I wrong?"

Peter swallowed and nodded. The Doctor smiled and looked at the roof, "do you always call her Bad Wolf?" He asked, artlessly avoiding the original question.

"Of course. What do you call her?" Peter asked, looking perplexed as they stepped from the lift.

"Rose," the Doctor said simply, enjoying the feel of the name on his lips. Peter looked aside at the Doctor like he was mad. "What?"

"It's just...she stopped an invasion by these...Sycorax things when she first got here, single handedly, beamed onto their ship right from the Tower. Rumour has it she got into a sword fight for the planet n' won. We were scrambling, no way we could get our weapons systems online in time to stop them. She saved the planet. Everyone..." Peter shook his head, "we just started calling her Bad Wolf after that. I'm not sure who started it."

The Doctor grinned at him and they carried on. There were several floors all with similar layouts, big open affairs with massive computer banks lining their walls. There was Chem Division, full of bench tops and fume hoods with concoctions bubbling away. Tech spanned no less than three floors while Bio had two. He danced around like a kid in a candy store, looking at everything and peppering people with questions.

On the Second floor of Tech, Peter pointed to a blank stretch of wall in the corner. "That's Bad Wolf's, she calls it her 'Shed' but she doesn't get to it much." While he was shown around the rest of the Tech two with all of its exciting diversions, the Doctor's eyes kept returning to that blank stretch of wall and wondering.

Noon came and went. Peter somewhat awkwardly offered to show the Doctor to the mess and have lunch with him. The Doctor had to fish a bent up coat hanger, a sock, a handful of what looked marbles and a map of the London underground out of his coat pockets before he could locate the 40 quid Rose had lent him and pay for lunch. Half of him listened as Peter talked about the project he was working on, half of him wondered what had kept Rose.

After lunch, Peter showed the Doctor around the top floors. This was a quicker tour, owing to the fact that these were the floors where business happened. Dry meetings and appointments and conference calls taking place in dry offices with dull office furniture.

The Doctor had to smile when they passed Rose's office, notable by the black and gold placard which read 'Bad Wolf'. Peter motioned for them to be quiet on the next floor, one shy of Pete's floor, and they walked past several meeting rooms which all seemed to be crammed. _Good insulation_ , The Doctor thought, noting that none of the bustle and conversation of any of them reached their ears.

They were turning back down the long hall when one of the doors opened beside them and the Doctor heard Rose's voice. "You can't send the Hercules probe there, s'a Class P planet! They've got rights." She sounded exasperated.

"Says who?" A gruff voice responded.

"Says me," Rose said without missing a beat, "says-" But she was cut off as the door closed.

The Doctor stepped into the elevator with Pete and the woman who had exited Rose's meeting, his eyes still on the door he had heard her through. He wondered how long she had been in that meeting, wondered what planet they were talking about, wondered if Rose spent most of her days trying to convince the human race that it didn't own the universe.

-#-

Six o'clock found the Doctor sitting alone at Peter's desk in Tech two, everyone else having gone home for the evening. He had pulled apart his comm device completely and, glasses on, tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth, was soldering some bits onto its circuit board.

Rose approached silently, having forgone the lift to take the stairs like she often did. She paused and looked at the Doctor, suit jacket off, sleeves rolled to his elbows, alone in the vast space of Tech two, and felt guilty.

He only knew she was there when she let her footfalls become audible. He looked up and smiled, such a Doctor smile it made her heart ache after the long day. Rose sat down and breathed in deeply, exhaled. They regarded one another silently.

Truth was, she preferred dimension jumping, long hauls on foot and generally defying death and the odds to the day to day monotony that Torchwood could be. She would have preferred to have had lunch with the Doctor, too.

"Sorry I missed our date," she said, running a hand through her blonde locks.

Reaching out, an easy smile on his lips, the Doctor tugged at the collar of her white dress shirt, "you're the boss, had very important boss things to do, I imagine."

She smiled tiredly. "Yeah, like keeping this lot from blowing things up. What kind of a world is it where I trust you on your own more'n them," she flicked her eyes skyward, indicating the top brass of Torchwood. At the thought, she looked down at the comm device which lay in pieces on the workbench.

The Doctor looked at it likewise, then at Rose's face as she picked up the circuit board to examine it, waiting for a tongue lashing.

"Yeah, first thing I did when I got mine was remove the auto-tracking, too." She let it fall back onto the table with a clatter and they shared another smile. "You should put in a reroute though, to activate it when it's stationary, yeah? Then Torchwood'll get the signal if you're unconscious."

The Doctor looked down at the device, then at the one on Rose's wrist as she stood up and walked away from him. He turned in his chair, then rose to follow when he saw her heading toward the unmarked corner.

"So, of all the things Peter showed me today, he didn't seem to have the faintest idea where I'd actually be working..." the Doctor trailed off as he came to stand beside Rose, staring at the empty wall. "Pete happen to mention to you where he wanted me?"

Rose smiled looking at the wall. "Pete knows you'll gravitate some place useful, just like I did." She looked aside at him. "This is my Shed."

"So I heard," he replied softly.

Rose stepped up to the wall and slid her hand along a patch that was at her chest height. Cracks appeared in the outline of a door before the surface shifted aside and she stepped through, the Doctor following her. His eyes lit up and his jaw dropped open when he saw the room. Bits of alien tech littered shelves 12 feet high. Soft blipping, whirring and clicking noises were emanating from every corner. Some of it was dangerous, some practical from a human standpoint, some simply art. All of it was beautiful in some way to the Doctor. A grin drifted across his face when he realised that Rose must have thought so too. He looked aside at her.

Rose stood, arms crossed in front of her chest, a not quite smile threatening her lips and cavorting in her eyes. "Callin' this the Shed, you know, seemed appropriate, mostly just come in here t'tinker...only, don't have much time for it these days. Don't suppose you'd like to hang your shingle out here?" The insane glint in his eye and matching grin were rewarding to her. For the first time, Rose wondered if maybe it would be possible to make the Doctor happy somewhere stationary.

The Doctor's grin faded to just his trademark smile and he stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Wouldn't want to take over your space, seem to be doing a lot of that lately."

She considered him for a second, then gave the room a quick rounding glance before returning to his face. "I like you in my space." A quick smile, then.

He grinned again and was off, glasses on, a not so sonic screwdriver procured form his pocket, tasting bits of metal, peering into tubes, blowing off dust. Rose let herself watch him, for just a minute and for just a minute she pretended this was years ago, he was the same man and she was the same girl. But just for minute.

They ate fish and chips on the steps of the walkway outside her apartment late that night while he told her about everything he'd seen at Torchwood. While he babbled, Rose just listened, her eyes following his gestures, with a soft smile almost kissing her lips.


	2. Two Steps Back

Domestics, it turned out, really weren't his strong suit. What surprised Rose most, in the end, was that she was surprised by this at all.

The Doctor's third night at her flat he made her dinner. It was pasta, tomato sauce, a little greenery. Nothing fancy.

Rose took a bite and her eyes flashed up to the Doctor, her mouth frozen in mid chew. Having been watching her for her reaction, the Doctor frowned and proceeded to take a bite of his own. He spit it back onto his plate and scraped the offending sauce from his tongue with his fork while Rose discretely deposited her mouthful in a napkin.

"I'm...I'm sorry," the Doctor apologized, staring perplexedly at the offending meal.

"S'ok," Rose said, after washing down several parts of her glass of red wine. "Maybe you just put in too much...licorice?" She couldn't be certain what the strange and overpowering flavour was, but it was closely related to licorice.

-#-

On his third attempt at cooking for her, Rose awoke to the smell of burning and her kitchen in a state of disaster that put seaside cities recently afflicted with tsunamis to shame. Having procured a microscope from somewhere, the Doctor was analysing the residue on the frying pan that had once been eggs. Rose, to her credit, didn't even sigh. She walked over to the coffee machine and poured herself a cup. Also to her credit, she didn't spit it out immediately the second the liquid assaulted her taste buds and her taste buds informed her this was some form of battery acid, certainly not something that had any place in her mouth. She told him to get dressed and they went out for breakfast.

"I've seen ya cook," she said over a fork crammed with fluffy omelette, "I know ya can do it."

He frowned at her over his cup of coffee. "When did you seen me cook?"

She pointed her fork at him. "Mornin' after Captain Jack made me waffles, n'I fawned over 'em for half a day, you made this crispy...cheesy...bread thing, said it was French."

"Really?" His voice had gone high as he strained to recall.

"Mmm, it was gorgeous, put Jack's waffles to shame." She gave him the sparse smile he was coming to realise was normal for her now.

"Oh," The Doctor suddenly looked odd, a little distant. "You've seen... _me_ cook." Me referred to the incarnation of himself that had first met Rose.

Rose swallowed and frowned at him. "You said nothing big changed, you know, in your head, when you change."

The Doctor shrugged. "Used to be a dab hand with a sword, now I'm more a danger to myself than the fella at the pointy end."

-#-

He was beloved at Torchwood R&D to the same degree as but in a different way than Bad Wolf within his first two weeks. He became the authority everyone turned to with a seemingly unsolvable problem even though he was the newest member of the team. He steadfastly resisted a codename, though many of his co-workers offered suitable suggestions in almost every conversation.

The top floors of Torchwood, the office-crammed floors where meetings that decided the fate of the planet were held, were quickly renamed the Boring Floors, one through six. Tech, Bio and Chem workers caught themselves laughing about Boring three or Boring six when Rose walked past them and they looked at their feet. They missed the smile in her eyes every time. Everyone knew the new John Smith character was responsible.

The Doctor and Rose never had that lunch they talked about on his first day.

Instead he found ways to find her, to remind her of the wonder that existed in the world. He found ways to remind her to smile.

Not quite two weeks into being back, Rose was on Boring three in a meeting with several senior officials from international Torchwood-like agencies. They were all men. They were all dressed in military uniform, medals hung off their chests, stripes adorned their epaulettes. Rose came appropriately dressed in black jeans, white trainers and a black leather jacket, her military uniform. Her hoop earrings pissed them off, she knew, and she loved the earrings the more for it.

Because the rooms were so well soundproofed, they didn't hear the footfalls or hollers until the Doctor and a worker from Bio burst through the door, on the heals of a massive, animated green blob. Dignified military men, Rose, the Doctor and the worker watched as the green blob glommed on to the table, two of the men at the table quickly rolling their chairs to make way for it, and approached the opaque plastic container that sat at the table's centre. When the blob touched the container, it began to smoke and eventually melted away to reveal a second, smaller green blob.

The only two people in the room cogent enough to think about the procedures that existed in case an event such as the one they were witnessing took place were Rose and the Doctor. They were both too fascinated to be bothered much with procedures. Everyone else in the room was gobsmacked.

"Look!" The Doctor sounded like he was looking at something on the cute scale of 'bunny.' "I think they're mating!" He stood beside Rose who spared him enough of a glance to note that his trousers were rolled to his knees, he was barefoot, his button-up shirt was untucked, his hair completely dishevelled and he was, on the whole, quite damp.

Rose leaned forward to peer at the green blob, singular now. "Why'd you let the _Gerillium_ out?"

Motioning vaguely in the direction of their fellow employee from Bio, the Doctor said, "Hasrat noticed it was acting up, which, for a Gerillium, is saying something."

Rose considered this for minute, then nodded in agreement. The extraterrestrial green goo was generally dormant and stationary, taking the shape of its container in a manner that expressed contentment at doing so.

"So I thought, let's let it out, see what's got it all excited and bam! Up the stairs it went and right into..." the Doctor finally looked around the room. "Were you having a meeting?" The drip of water from his trousers onto the carpet was the only sound in the room for a second.

A few of the assembled persons spared him a glance.

"Hallo!" The Doctor said brightly, "I'm John Smith, sorry to bust up your very important looking meeting...about _Gerillium_ ," he frowned down at Rose, "please tell me your very important meetings are usually about something more important than _Gerillium_."

"Wish I could," Rose said, smirking briefly at the aforementioned creature. "Doctor, I think we might be able to document the population growth rate of Gerillium now."

"How's that?" He asked before it dawned very suddenly on him that the green blob had begun to grow. "Oh! Brilliant! Hasrat!" He called for the Bio worker, snapping her our of her stupefaction, and they both reached for ends of what remained of the plastic container on the table.

"Don't forget, in your report, yeah? They secrete something caustic before they...have at it," Rose called after the Doctor's back as he was almost at the door.

Straining under the weight of a box full of multiplying Gerillium, the Doctor turned his head, grinning, and winked at Rose.

She pursed her lips to fight the smile that wanted to grace them in response.

He got her to laugh just a little on the drive home, leaning out her window to let the sound of her mirth into the night air.

The light in her room was out by the time he was out of the shower and he slumped on to the couch in his own exhaustion. He was almost getting used to the whole pattern of sleeping and waking by that time.

When he opened his eyes again, he was in Torchwood Tower, on the top floor, but not in Pete's office. The room was as it had been all those years ago, a sterile white wall dominating the whole of it. Beside him Rose grabbed hold of the gravity cancellation device as the breach opened. The lever slipped, Rose got it upright, his heart was hammering painfully. She was holding on, she was slipping, she fell.

"HOLD ON! HOLD ON!" He screamed himself hoarse, reached for her as he felt arms tighten around him. "ROSE!" Her name drew out for an eternity, begging the universe not to take her.

The flat was dark except for the ever present lights of the walkway coming in through the windows, lights that his eyes focused on as he crashed into consciousness. He was drenched with sweat, he realised, one arm straining out to catch Rose before she fell into the rift even though Rose was hugging him tight. His head was in the crook of her neck, his other arm clutching at her as he had clutched his own gravity cancellation device. Heaving in great gulps of air, he began to shiver and not because he was cold. Rose stroked the nape of his neck.

"It was a nightmare, a dream's all," she whispered to him, hating the feel of him shaking, unable to breathe properly.

She made him tea and stayed up with him a while. She didn't ask what the nightmare had been about, she had guessed from his screams. When she finally went back to her own room for the night, the Doctor turned the light on the table beside the couch back on and stared up at the ceiling a moment. Then he got up and read every single book Rose Tyler owned. Hunger, tiring, sleep and a burgeoning sex drive were one thing. The Doctor, a Time Lord, would not be mastered by his mind in such a way, not ever again.

-#-

In his third week, the Doctor noted that people had begun to talk about Tin Dog in the mess, even on the R&D floors. Word had spread that he wasn't coming back. They talked about what this meant for Secondary Operations, they asked amongst themselves in whispers if anyone had noticed a change in Bad Wolf since Tin Dog's loss. A few people outright asked the Doctor if he knew anything.

The employees of Torchwood, by and large, many having been selected by Rose, were capable of putting two and two together. John Smith had appeared after operation Black Sky and operation Doctor, two operations that had consumed the organisation for nearly two years, that had cost them Tin Dog. Deflecting their questions, the Doctor could sense sparks of mistrust grow in his co-workers.

He was too distracted to care for in this same time period, he sensed and saw Rose's agitation. He had remembered her saying she would direct Secondary Ops as to Mickey's replacement and the time to do so seemed nigh.

The things he didn't understand about human beings could, at that time, have filled the collective libraries of one and a half planets. He calculated this estimate in a split second the night Rose came home to him sorting through the remnants of most of his new wardrobe at the living room table.

Having had to stay at work late for the third time that week, likely due to the Tin Dog upheaval the Doctor suspected, Rose had come home on her own, the Doctor having taken to the tubes with a childish glee. She opened the door and stared at the shrunken, shredded and discoloured heap of fabric that had once been the suits and pants and shirts she was just coming to love seeing. When she found the Doctor's eyes he was struck by how pained she looked, considering it was just clothes.

Then the Doctor became slightly afraid when Rose sighed a great chest heaving sigh as she looked around the flat. The kitchen was still a no man's land, more so now that the Doctor had disassembled the dishwasher and microwave in a few of his night time bids to stave off sleep. Books and hunks of Torchwood littered the floor space around the couch. She knew the bathroom was in a state, because there were now two people sharing it and the Doctor practically counted as a couple of people all on his own.

Closing the door at a deliberate snails pace, Rose then leaned against it and looked at the Doctor tiredly. "We need to find you a flat," she said eventually.

Swallowing hard, the Doctor asked meekly, "what?"

Rose gestured around them. "What'd ya mean, what? Look at this place! Was the Tardis always pickin' up after ya?" As soon as she said it, Rose knew it was true, found confirmation in the frown the Doctor cast at the mess around him before looking back up at her guiltily.

Picking up a scrap of cloth from the table, Rose examined it before glaring at him. "An' we need to get you new clothes. Brilliant. I don't even wanna know what ya did t'the washer."

She didn't notice the attempts he had made at cleaning the flat overnight the next morning before they left for work nor did she respond when he tried to draw her out into conversation. He didn't get desperate, though, until she told him, as they drove away from Torchwood at the end of the day, that there was a flat they should go check out.

They meandered around opposite ends of the small space as Rose asked the questions the Doctor wouldn't have known to ask anyway, even if he hadn't been busy trying to identify the feeling known as 'heartache' to most homosapiens.

"Doctor?"

"Hmm?" He looked up to find Rose suddenly at his side, the landlord hovering over the stove a ways away.

"I was sayin' we'd wait 'til I was back from Secondary before we moved ya in, yeah?" She was near enough that he could read the tired in her eyes, in the way she was forcing herself to stand tall, her shoulders back.

"I'm sorry about Mickey," he blurted out and Rose leaned back from him, a frown on her face.

"What?" She asked sharply.

"I'm really sorry...I know he was...and especially _here_ he was..." The Doctor fumbled, his eyes soft. "And now you have deal with him just being gone and that...seems to happen to you a lot, with people that you... and I'm sorry."

He watched her jaw work for a few seconds, trying to find words to hold onto as she slowly blinked, her eyes hard and fixed on his.

Breathing faster, the Doctor charged on into her silence, gesticulating as he did so. "I can move in here and you'd be well shot of me, or I can not and I can learn to cook and...and clean up...and do laundry! I can do those things and I can...I can not leave...I can not leave...you." He swallowed. She stared at him still. "I can pay rent-" he tried, before he was cut off.

"No."

"No..." he breathed, finally realising that this was what the movies and books meant by 'heartache.' Literally the sensation of horrible pain in the chest, near the vicinity of one's heart.

"S'too small," Rose said quietly after a minute, softening. "My place is too small, we'd need something bigger." She gave him a weak smile.

Jaw dropping, the Doctor stared at her, her smile drawing up the corners of her mouth increasingly. "Brilliant," he whispered after a minute, smiling in kind.

"Sure you're not sick?" Rose frowned suddenly in mock seriousness.

"Sick?" The Doctor asked, confused.

"Yeah, pretty much just agreed to get a mortgage with me, didn't ya?"

Her tongue peeked out from between her teeth at the corner of her mouth, just for second, and the Doctor's knees went weak.

-#-

They hugged, bone crushingly tight, her small bag for the trip at their feet. "M'only gone a week, maybe less," she murmured into his chest.

"I know," he said softly into her hair.

Pulling back, Rose looked up at him sternly. "Do not, under any circumstances, dismantle the telly."

"You didn't notice when I did it the first time," he said innocently. When she glared at him, he grinned, "kidding."

She smacked him, picked up her bag and left, a smile in her eyes for him as she closed the door.

"Right," he said to the empty flat, "cooking and cleaning, grub and suds." He picked up the phone off the cradle and flipped through Rose's address book.

"Jackie?"

She was elated at the prospect of teaching him how to tend house.

"'Bout time, too, Rose was at her wits end with you," she scolded as they perused the shop isles for food.

She showed him how to chop, dice and grate, to simmer, broil and bake. He scribbled notes down furiously, his glasses perched on his nose, the height of concentration. They sorted colours, lights and darks, learned about the funny symbols on clothing tags and iron settings. Jackie realised she needed to clarify that there were different products for different jobs when the Doctor made to tip toilet cleaner into the washing machine. He made more notes.

When they sat down to their well earned meal, the Doctor took his first bite, prepared to be blown away at his newly found culinary prowess, and realised he had made a terrible miscalculation. It had been an exercise in the blind leading the blind. He was fortunate that Jackie was distracted and didn't notice him surreptitiously tucking bits of their meal into his napkin.

Jackie sighed heavily as she pushed the food around on her plate and the Doctor frowned at her. "Everything all right?" He asked.

"Yeah," Jackie said after a minute, "it's just...oh, nothing."

The Doctor leaned forward, "come on. Try me out, I could do with some lessons in...feelings and listening and stuff, too, while we're at it." He grinned at her but felt a little disarmed when she only smiled sadly back.

"You don't need lessons on showing her you love her." Jackie gave a small laugh, looked back down at her food. "Look at this, learning how to take proper care of a house, you of all people! Just to show her."

The Doctor wasn't smiling anymore as he looked at her, a frown darkening his features. "What's wrong, Jackie?" He asked her quietly, gentle but demanding.

The same sad smile and she shook her head. She let him hug her before she left, the Doctor whispering a single 'thanks' into her shoulder.

He stared at the door after she had gone a minute before turning to look at the flat. He smiled, puffed out his chest, reached for his notes, tore out those under the heading of 'cooking' and crumpled them into a little ball. He deposited the ball neatly in the trash.

At work the next day, the Doctor asked Hasrat if she would teach him how to cook.

-#-

Rose returned to a spotless flat, new appliances and a home cooked Indian meal. They sat on the stairs on the walkway until two in the morning while Rose went through half a pack of cigarettes and told the Doctor about replacing Mickey.

After work the next day, to Rose's surprise, he directed her to an address. The flat was open and airy with more windows letting in more light than their current abode. It had worn hardwood floors and exposed brick columns, a proper balcony and two bedrooms.

"It's also closer to your mum," the Doctor commented offhandedly.

"Well, that's unfortunate," Rose intoned, staring out at the view, "cause everything else about it's perfect."

They smiled at one another across the living room.

-#-

If they had had more things, they would've needed help. As it was, Rose's possessions were few and the Doctor's fewer. He wasn't certain who they would've asked anyway.

As he had suspected, the Doctor now knew Rose hadn't really made friends in the new universe. Had she asked, any of their co-workers would have jumped at the chance to help Bad Wolf move; they certainly seemed to want to be friendly. But Rose held herself back from them with a military discipline the Doctor could only wonder at. People stood in awe of her but they didn't ask her out to coffee. On the other hand, people invited him out left, right and centre, his usual charm winning them over without him trying much at all. In a practised way, he held them back, too, though no one seemed to note it as they did with Rose.

Having finished getting the couch down seven flights, the sun peeked out and Rose stripped her long sleeved shirt off, bringing her down to a thin strapped tank top. The Doctor stared at her as she bent down to pick up a large box, waiting for him to help.

Rose was incredibly lean now, he noted, sinewy muscles wrapping around her arms and shoulders like rock formations smoothed with wind and time. Her beauty alone might not have stopped him in his tracks, hormones or no, but the scars that were patterned over that beauty did. There was a broad cut marring her left shoulder, a mesh of tiny dimples below her right collar bone, as though someone had gone at her with a soccer cleat. And so many more small healed injuries.

"Ground control to major Tom, get a bloody move on, will ya? This's heavy." Rose glared at him.

Rose's meagre possessions moved in, a bed delivered for the Doctor, they sat on the concrete of their new balcony and watched the sun set, backs to the bricks of the building.

"What is it?" Rose finally asked after a mouthful of Pizza.

"Mmm?" The Doctor responded innocently, his own mouth full.

"You've been weird ever since this afternoon, watchin' me an' all. What is it then?"

Inhaling deeply, the Doctor let out a sigh and ruffled his hair. "D'you think...would you tell me about the time you spent trying to find me?" As he asked this he hesitantly lifted a finger to trace the glaring scar across her shoulder. Rose watched him do it before raising her eyes to his, a calculating look in them.

"Yeah," she answered after a minute, "I'll tell you...when you finally tell me about the Time War." Memories of the Time War were ones he had never shared with her, had always kept back, though she had never pushed too hard for them. That was a different time, she had been a different woman.

The Doctor withdrew his finger as though burned, eyes wide, mouth open for a minute before his face hardened. "That...That is different."

Rose huffed out an unamused puff of air through her nose and dropped a pizza crust back in the box. "No, s'really not. It's something you don't want to talk about, 'cause it hurts...and maybe 'cause you're afraid of what I'd think of you n'the things you've done."

Their eyes met after this last declaration and they both understood the things they saw there. They had both looked into the eyes of fellow soldiers, fellow killers, and understood bloodlust, the ache for revenge, the utter despair of leaving some behind to save others. Looking away, they both wondered if some day that shared knowledge might not make them closer. For the time being, though, the things they kept from one another did just the opposite, reminded them they were different from who they had been, reminded them that trust was not a given between them anymore.

"This one was from a Sycorax, though, had nothin' t'do with finding ya," Rose said a while later, pointing to the broadest scar on her shoulder, pleased with herself.

"Aaah, yes, I heard about that. Rose Tyler single-handedly sending the Sycorax packing," he smiled aside to her, sidestepping their earlier conversation right along with her.

"MmmHmm, didn't even lose a hand," her pleased smile was still contained as she lifted a hand and wiggled her fingers at him.

But the Doctor took that smile, returned it, and they carried on.

-#-

Two months and the Doctor finally felt as though he were finding a way to fight sleep. He cat napped in the Shed on occasion, set alarms for himself at multiple intervals when he did sleep, which was about every fourth night. Listening to music at ridiculously loud volumes, though, that had begun in a bid to do more than just keep himself awake.

In the excess time he found on his hands, time in which the rest of the world seemed content to sleep, the Doctor found himself tuned into his auditory sense more keenly. Something he heard bothered him for weeks before he finally figured out what it was, finally determined it wasn't a sound, but the absence thereof.

He had been absent-mindedly taking apart some piece of tech from Torchwood in the wee hours one night, sitting on the couch in the jeans and a t-shirt he had worn that day, when he suddenly looked up into the middle distance. His mouth went dry. He was dying.

 _No, no, no_ , he calmed himself, _you have one heart, it's fine, it's fine_. Periodically he had to do this, remind himself that the single heartbeat in his chest was not a sign that he was dying. But it struck him then, as he massaged his chest with his hand, sitting with no music or people chatting or telly in the background, that his single heart sounded forlorn. Quite regardless of the physiological repercussion he thought he should be experiencing from only having a single pulmonary device, he realised he missed the sound.

They had always beat in tandem, his hearts, a rhythm that had driven the Master mad but that had, the Doctor realised, kept him sane in a way. A constant he had taken for granted.

He rubbed at his chest some more. His hearts, his Tardis. They had always been there. 904 years the hearts, just shy of 900 the Tardis. Sitting back, the Doctor thought of the sound of the Tardis, her hum, and the soft psychic connection they had shared ever since their first trip together.

Hearts. Tardis. Gone. In their place an unsettling quiet into which his single heart beat to remind him he was mortal, certainly no longer a Lord of Time.

The Doctor got up and found a musical device, fought with the tangled headphones and jammed them into his ears. He cranked the volume. He didn't sleep.

-#-

Researching the effects of human sex hormones became something of a past time for the Doctor too. It had gotten to the point where, he knew because he counted, he thought about sex on average 187 times a day. The research came about as a way for him to determine if this was normal for a human being, as he suspected it couldn't be. How the hell did they get anything done?

To say it was distracting him was an understatement.

The most conflicting part for him was that most of this attention was being focused by his psyche on Rose. That seemed natural enough, he supposed, she was beautiful, young, fit for procreating. But there were plenty of other young, pretty people about in his life now. They never seemed to feature in his daydreams, though, just Rose.

It was an instant wherein he had fallen asleep at his desk in the Shed, music blaring from the Bruxcan speaker system he had gotten working, that he understood why. He dreamed she was on the desk, lain out before him, her hands gripping his bare skin, his lips and tongue caressing hers. He hadn't _danced_ in this regeneration's body, hadn't had the inclination really, not when he was still a Time Lord. 900 years of experience and imagination made up for sensations he had never felt on his nerves. It was just another sex dream, brought on by over active though apparently normal hormones, until Rose arched into him and called out his name. His _real_ name. In Gallifreyan.

The Doctor's head snapped up off the desk and he gasped, blinking in the sterile light of the Shed, a few wires and washers and bits of solder stuck to his face. He brushed them off as he jammed the heels of his palms into his eye sockets and groaned.

His human body wanted Rose because his Gallifreyan mind was still reaching out to her, aching for the connection they had once shared, the closest thing to a bond with a Time Lord he'd had in hundreds of years.


	3. The Rdis, the Adventure and the Let Down

Whenever the Doctor got bored at work, he chose a Boring floor at random and sat in on a meeting. It only seemed appropriate and more often than not there was some interesting bit of tech or bio being discussed that he could play with. Sometimes his presence was questioned, sometimes not. He always walked in and sat down like he belonged there, even if it was clear the meeting had started some time previously. Funnily enough, he was questioned less the later he arrived, it being presumed that only someone important would dare show their face so late.

The most fun the Doctor had on such occasions was when he stumbled in on a meeting Rose also happened to be in. He would grin more than usual in these meetings, offer up more opinions and questions and find himself backed up by Rose whenever questioned in return.

This particular meeting was gold because Pete was also there. Barely able to contain his excitement at such fortune, the Doctor watched in silent glee as the ginger and his not-daughter sparred verbally. Torchwood, the Doctor gathered from his eavesdropping, had been asked by the British government to consider a request made by the president of Yemen.

"We're not equipped for desert operations," Pete pointed out.

"We could move in the Valiant over the area, drop in troops as necessary," Rose countered.

"One, we don't even have any confirmation that these cow herders aren't just seein' mirages which means, two, we'd have no idea what situation we were sendin' our guys into." Pete counted off his points on his fingers, leaned back in his chair like an entrenched soldier.

Rose leaned over the table, glaring at him, the only one in the room in a t-shirt and jeans. " _One_ , they heard camels, not cows. _Two_ , they're Bedouin, what the hell must they have seen that'd scare them, _them_ , enough that there concerns reach _London,_ yeah? _Three_ , give our personnel some bloody credit, would'ya, we can't always go in with our eyes open." She didn't dare look at the Doctor, who had just propped his feet up on the edge of the boardroom table, knowing he was grinning at her.

Pete glared right back for a minute before turning his chair to face the Doctor. "What do you think, _Smith_?"

 _I think you're a small, angry man_ , the Doctor thought. Sniffing, the Doctor laced his hands behind his head, leaned further back in his chair. "You already know I agree with her," he said simply, his manic grin diminishing to a smile.

"Only 'cause you're sleepin' with her," a crony of Pete's who worked high up in personnel piped up.

Not even sparing the man a glance, the Doctor replied, "I'm not, actually, don't try and be clever or witty, Ambrose, neither really suits you. No, I agree with Rose because she's the cleverest person in the room, aside from me," he added quickly, "and, the cleverest person in the room, apart from me, by quite a bit." Dropping his feet, the Doctor stood abruptly and walked over to Pete, hands in his pockets. "Besides Pete! Britain was always sticking it's nose where it wasn't asked for. Why don't you stick it where it is for once?"

He circled Pete and wound up by Rose's side, grinned down at her. "You and me should go."

"What?" She looked up at him quizzically.

"I've got something to show you," the Doctor said in a sing song, offering her his hand.

A glint in her eye told the Doctor Rose was with him, even if her features remained neutral. She nodded at him, ignoring his proffered hand in front of the assembled.

"What about Bloody Yemen!?" Pete growled from behind them as they were almost out the door.

"Don't worry!" The Doctor called over his shoulder, "tell their president we're on it!"

"You just right pissed him off," Rose said after the lift doors had enclosed them. She shot the Doctor a small smile and he beamed at her. He knew she loved it when he got under Pete's skin. "Do ya actually have somethin' helpful or were you just bluffin'?"

The Doctor looked wounded. "When do I ever not have a fully formed and absolutely flawless plan at the ready?"

Rose closed her eyes and shook her head as she leaned against the back of the lift, the ghost of a smile on her lips. The Doctor was momentarily distracted by the line her neck drew down to her collar bone and then on to her brea-

"So, plan, yeah?" Rose prodded, opening her eyes to look at him.

Snapping his attention back to her face, the Doctor nodded. "Yes, plan, yep. I really do have something to show you."

Rose's brow knit in confusion when they stepped out into Hanger One, technically one of two floors above Pete's office that usually housed a few personnel carriers in case of emergency. These relatively small but still imposing ships loomed at them out of the darkness of the hanger.

"What're we doing here?" Rose asked.

Extending his hand once more, almost smiling in a secretive way, the Doctor waggled his fingers as her. Alone with him, Rose didn't hesitate in taking his hand. They traversed the maze of the hulks until they came to a corner of the hanger, empty save for a structure clad in a heavy canvas.

Rose froze immediately upon seeing it, the size and shape of it, her heart speeding as she gripped the Doctor's hand very tightly. She couldn't bring herself to look at him.

Delicately, the Doctor extricated himself from Rose's grasp and bent to lift a corner of the cloth, then hauled the tarpaulin over and aside. Rose took a step back, bringing the back of her hand to her mouth to stifle the sound she knew she would've made. She stared up at the letters 'Police' glowing out from an deep blue that was almost black in the dimness of the hanger.

Swallowing, Rose waited until she could trust her voice to be steady before saying, "s'the Tardis-"

"No, it's the Rdis" the Doctor quickly corrected, stepping back to her side and watching her carefully. He had suspected the rudimentary camouflage program might shock her but he couldn't help it. He couldn't bring himself to program it as anything else.

Snapping her face to the Doctor's, Rose scanned his face in a very probing manner, with a deadly focus he would've expected from someone holding a gun to his head. "Explain."

"R-D-I-S, no 'Time And'," the Doctor quickly replied. Then he stepped back to the doors and pushed one in, revealing the glowing lights within. The look in Rose's eyes when she glimpsed the console nearly broke his heart. It was the purest expression of longing and he was certain his face had mirrored it when he first fired the whole thing up.

Swallowing, Rose tore her eyes away from the sight to look back at him. Thinking she wanted more of an explanation, the Doctor carried on.

"Time Lords created relative dimensional technology. Bigger on the inside is...easy. But Gallifrey...Gallifrey gave us mastery over time. The Tardis' were born of the untempered schism, they made us, not the other way around. I can't make a Tardis," he finished, a little sadly, as though pleading with her to understand that he had done all he could.

In the back of his mind, the Doctor thought about the delicate crystal he was nurturing in the Shed. He thought of it but said nothing.

Rose looked at him warmly for all the eagerness he was showing to please her. She understood that part of what he had done had been for him, certainly, but he had been waiting for her, for her approval. He didn't know how deeply her understanding of Tardis technology and the part his home planet had played in it went. She wasn't ready to talk to him about that mess just yet.

Stepping forward, Rose grabbed his hand and squeezed it and they walked into the police box.

She couldn't help it, she smiled as she looked around the arching supports and the great dome dotted with glowing round glasses. If she squinted and held her breath, it was almost perfect. But the smell was way off, it smelled very...very _new_. And the time rotor was lightless and empty. That was hard for Rose to see, the heart of that beautiful ship stilled.

They circled the console, the Doctor watching her the entire time. Rose turned to him, slowly looked at him, his manic grin, the dark circles under his eyes. "Why aren't you sleepin'?" She asked pointedly.

"What?" The Doctor asked, thrown.

"You've been here two months and 25 days. No way in hell did you build this, what with everything else you've been gettin' up to 'round here, in the daylight hours of two months and 25 days."

He didn't respond.

"Why aren't you sleepin'?" She prodded again.

Slipping his hand from her grasp, the Doctor danced around the console, throwing levers and spinning dials. "Rub al Khali Desert, here we come," he began to babble, "we can go off planet quite easily, mind you, after our inaugural jaunt. Not far, though, what without chronal stability and all, wind up 300 years old by the time we hit the Kinjaka peninsula, wouldn't we?"

Rose leaned against the railing and crossed her arms, let him get away with avoiding her question. How could she not? She was in the Tardis with him and he was happy, or he at least looked happy. She wanted to run to his side and pluck at his sleeve and bask in his exuberance.

But she was Bad Wolf, not simply Rose Tyler, and this was a mission, not her and the Doctor running across time and space.

The Doctor looked up when Rose brought her comm to her lips and began spouting off instructions to have the Valiant moved into shallow orbit over Yemen with 75 Torchwood tactical personnel on board.

"Not just the old team then," the Doctor asked, his face bereft of expression.

Slowly pushing off from the railing, Rose went to the console and began making small corrections. The Doctor watched with curiosity as she pulled the view screen toward her and basically took over their flight. "Back when we were travellin' an' I didn't know nothin', I couldn't give us insurance, no back up. Now I can and I've got a responsibility to, not just to you but to Britain, to the Earth." When she received no response from this, Rose finally looked over at him, "that all right?"

 _Weight of the world on her shoulders_ , he thought and nodded at her. He regained his mood quickly enough, and they moved around the console with murmured and brief spurts of conversation, watching each other out of the corners of their eyes. Rose hid her smiles in her shoulder but he caught them all the same.

"So, what are we looking for? I came kinda late to the meeting," the Doctor grinned as he turned a crank.

Rose was looking at the view screen intently. "They were describin' a big bug, basically, but it didn't sound like a Noori or an Injitskis, none of the insectoid species remotely close by."

Narrowing his eyes at her, the Doctor made his way towards Rose. "Rose...how do you know about the Noori? We never met-"

"Doctor, here!" She called him over, turning the view screen toward him. "What the hell is that?"

His frown intensified as his eyes darted over the readings, his glasses finding their way onto his face. "I...have no idea," he turned to Rose and grinned, "I love it when I have no idea!"

Rose had forgotten the speed with which the Tardis operated. The Rdis didn't move quite as quickly, still having to traverse normal time as it did, but it moved a hell of a lot faster than any of Torchwood's ships. She patted the box affectionately when they stepped from it, out into the blazing light of a desert day. Rose raised a hand to shield her eyes, the Doctor procured sunglasses from a pocket too small to have concealed them.

"Weeeell," the Doctor drew out, "this is where the reading's coming from."

They looked in opposite directions, then turned, their back still to one another, in tandem to survey the whole of their surroundings. There was sand and sky and sun, no more. Not a breeze, not a bird, not a soul.

"I'd say the...Rdis scanning system is rubbish except I checked, n'it's not," Rose offered, striking out from the box and the Doctor's side.

"Where are you going then?" He asked after her, following.

"Gain some ground, see what I can see."

The ground gained did not gain them much except a view of more rolling dunes. Rose crossed her arms over her chest. "Didn't happen to bring a spade did ya?"

Tugging on his ear, the Doctor looked back at the Rdis. It had some rudimentary provisions but nothing excessive. And it wasn't the Tardis, a living machine capable of using imagination, the energy of the universe and the mould growing in the damp spot underneath the console grating to generate whatever it psychically sensed its occupants required. "No, not as such," he replied.

He looked back to Rose who had produced an impossibly small, definitely not earth made pair of binoculars from her jacket. "What was it this bug creature was doing to...well, bug, the Bedouin anyway?"

Before Rose could answer, the sand underneath their feet shifted as the earth began to move. This might not sound as terrifying as it was, owing to the fact that shifting sound essentially becomes a liquid. Rose and the Doctor sunk like stones.

 _There's a lot of things you need to get across this universe...the thing you need most of all...a hand to hold._

They found each other's hand and held on. Sand went everywhere, into everything, no matter how tightly they closed their eyes or mouths. Their limbs struggled as though to tread water, feeling like they moved through concrete that hadn't set yet. The Doctor was trying to remember if he had stashed an inflatable in one of his pockets, that they might float to the surface before the movement stopped and they were left buried beneath several feet of sand. Then his ass and Rose's feet connected with something very solid and they were forced back to the surface. They broke through, gasping, before they slid under again.

The shaking stopped before they had a chance to sink to any great depth and they were able to claw their way back to the air and the light. Hacking up an unpleasant combination of saliva, sand and snot, they gasped for air on their hands and knees for a while. They clutched each other's hands and both knew the other was, by and large, okay for it.

"Were you going to say earthquakes, by any chance?" the Doctor rasped, barely able to open his eyes for the sand in them to look at Rose.

"Makin' the water disappear, didn't say how," Rose managed to choke out in between coughing fits.

They laid down and breathed, arms slung over their faces to ward off the sun.

"Surface instability of that degree would register on the Richter scale. Enough to drain an oasis, you figure?" The Doctor managed after a while, peering out from under his arm at Rose.

Red eyed, she peered back at him and nodded. They both shifted when they heard voices.

Fast, with words rolling like beads over their tongues, a young man was approaching them as he called to a boy retreating away. The man dragged what looked like a wooden plate, of a size fit for a giant, behind them.

Squinting at him, the Doctor called out, "As-salaam alaikum."

"And to you," the man replied in respectable English, a canteen in the hand he stretched out to them, a form of greeting.

"You speak English," the Doctor commented, surprised, as Rose took the first swig of water.

"As you know our words," the man answered, flashing them a brilliant smile.

He wore a loose long sleeved white shirt and wrapping about his head in contrast to the chocolate colouring of his skin and eyes. Cream trousers protected his legs from the sun but his feet were bare and dark, sinking into the sand. His hair, peeking from underneath his head covering and dusting his chin and cheeks managed to be a midnight shade of black, even in the glaring sun.

"How did you come to be here," he asked, eyeing them, their skin colour, their clothes, "and how did you live through that," he gestured out into the desert.

He had meant the shaking but his sweep of the desert behind them made the Doctor look back and his eyes go wide.

"Oh...no...No No No!" The Doctor cried out as he tried to run down the dune they stood atop and wound up falling in the sand, rolling the rest the way. Rose and their new Bedouin acquaintance ran down to him as he shovelled sand desperately with his hands.

"Whatever you lost to the sand is gone," the newcomer said quietly, kneeling down and looking at the Doctor intently.

The Doctor, however, stared at the careless mass of sand with fury quivering across every line of his face. Rose knelt down and considered the sand a moment before looking at her friend.

"S'all right, the Valiant should be able to find her," she said quietly.

Leaving the Doctor to process as he needed, Rose looked to the newcomer, noted how he stared at the Doctor. "What's your name, friend?"

As with an effort, the man looked away from the Doctor to Rose. "Hakkim," he replied and they nodded at one another.

"I'm Rose, this is the Doctor," Rose offered.

This statement snapped the Doctor's attention to Rose and a smile crept up on him. Rose hadn't gone by anything other than Bad Wolf since he'd come to her universe and she hadn't called him Doctor in that time except to her mother. He had been going by John Smith to keep a low profile at work.

Rose winked at him and he turned to Hakkim. "Nice to meet you, Hakkim. Was it your people who phoned up Britain about some bug?"

Once again, the Doctor had the Bedouin's undivided attention. "We sent our Sheikh to appeal for help...I didn't...we never...why are the British here?" He seemed thoroughly perplexed.

The Doctor sniffed. "Oh, you know the British, like to get into other people's business, mind you, in this case, it was the president of Yemen who asked us to have a look."

Hakkim's eyes slipped from the Doctor, to Rose, then back and forth one more time. "The president asked for help...from Britain?"

"We're from an organisation called Torchwood," Rose provided, "we deal with...well, w'wierd stuff, and not just in Britain, we get called in by all sorts of countries when something strange is going on."

Hakkim gave them both the once over again. "And they sent...you?" He almost looked offended.

"Oi!" The Doctor exclaimed, dusting grains of sand from the front of his jacket. "We may not look it but we're Torchwood's top operatives, Rose and I are."

This garnered a smile from Hakkim. "As you say," he shrugged, "you will die dressed like that. You, Tabib," he indicated the Doctor, "take off your coat and shirt."

Looking aside at Rose the Doctor winked, "straight to bussiness, our man Hakkim." He did as he was told however, Hakkim gazing at him intently as he stripped. The bedouin took the shirt and removed the sleeves, then split it in half with a knife he drew from his belt. He fashioned a head covering for Rose with the first half, tied about with one sleeve while the Doctor slipped his jacket back on. Then he did the same for the Doctor, his eyes drifting down to the Doctor's frequently as he did so.

Hakkim looked at the sky and the position of the sun, then led to a spot that was now, with the sun beginning to set, in the shade. They sat and he looked at them sternly. "How you can you help us?"

"What can you tell us about what's causin' the...the shakin'?" Rose asked. She watched Hakkim as he explained, how his gaze invariably drifted to the Doctor and surreptitiously to the patch of bare chest visible underneath his suit jacket. She didn't blame him, she found the pale skin there distracting her own self.

"It began...two months ago. The ground shook in the night...we thought it must be al-sā'ah, that Allah was coming to judge us. But we were alive when the sun rose, most of us. Those on the sands, they were swallowed. Most of the tribe was on the shores of the wa'ha and so were not lost to the sand."

"Is that why you haul that around," The Doctor interrupted, nodding at the large wooden plate Hakkim had brought with him, "to ride out the tremors on?"

Hakkim nodded and the Doctor smiled at him. "That's brilliant," the Doctor enthused.

"We have lost much of our heard," Hakkim shook his head, "I dare not bring a camel on my travels. This," he patted the thin wood, "keeps me safe."

"Where're you travellin' to?" Rose asked, casting a glance around at the forest of dunes that surrounded them. It turned out she was brilliant at navigating but she found she generally required landmarks to do so. The stars would be enough, once the sun set.

Looking over his shoulder, Hakkim nodded in a specific direction Rose could not see the significance of. "I follow the creature. I try to learn about it. I try," he looked back at them, "to find a way to stop it."

"Can you describe it?" The Doctor asked, squinting at Hakkim with sand-irritated eyes.

"The ones who have seen it and lived, which is not many, say it is as large as a heard of 20 camels, that its body is...cracked, yes? Like that of a mantis, broken into parts that move like joints. They say it is the colour of the sand."

At this last remark, the Doctor's head snapped to the side, both of his companions noting the movement.

"So it's from here, yeah?" Rose asked, "camouflauge to blend in, something an animal has to adapt for."

"It is of the desert, somehow, but it is wrong here," Hakkim opined.

"How d'ya mean?" Rose asked, furrowing her brow at him.

The Doctor had only half been listening to them ever since Hakkim had described the creatures colour. "Maybe from here...but before here..." he murmured, preventing Hakkim from answering. Rose and Hakkim watched the Doctor as he looked out over the sands, anticipating a revelation.

After several minutes, the Doctor looked at Hakkim. "Someone said something about water going missing?"

"That was why we sent for help," Hakkim confirmed, "whatever this creature is, when it shakes the ground, it takes the water."

Ruffling his hair, still frowning, the Doctor considered this. "Have you got a map of the surroundings, something with your tribe's...watering holes marked on it?"

Tilting his head to the side, Hakkim pursed his lips and tapped the side of his head with his forefinger. "In here."

The Doctor stared at him intently. "I need you to think, Hakkim, you've been following it, you know where you've gone. Does the path the creatures taken correspond to the watering holes in any way?"

Hakkim closed his eyes, though they could be seen darting side to side beneath his lids, as though tracing lines on a map in his mind. He nodded to himself before opening his eyes and looking at the Doctor. "Yes."

A spark lit the Doctor and his smile returned, manic. "We need to go to the nearest watering hole from here. Can you take us? Is it far?"

"Yes...and yes," Hakkim said, smiling in kind at the Doctor. "It would be about a day's walk...for those of us used to the sand."

"S'like the Doctor says, tougher than we look, we are," Rose said, standing. "Let's go fellas."

They walked for hours, Rose eventually stripping off her shoes and socks, the sand doing more damage wedged between her trainers and feet than when she walked barefoot. The Doctor followed suit. The sun set, the quarter moon rose and the stars blanketed them like old friends gathered in celebration. The Doctor walked with his face turned skyward for much of their journey, altering the map of the stars in his mind to coincide with this universe's celestial offerings.

Rose watched Hakkim watching the Doctor as they walked and smiled to herself. "Great big bug thing and you lot go askin' for help because the water's runnin' out."

Hakkim looked aside at her and shrugged.

"You aren't afraid of it," Rose clarified.

"I do not fear it," Hakkim conceded, "what is there to fear? It is a creature of the desert, as are we. Have you ever been thirsty, Warda? I mean a true thirst, a painful thirst?" He waited until she had shook her head before continuing. "Thirst, that is a thing to fear. Watching my brother die because our water is gone, that, that is a thing that I fear."

They held each other's eyes a moment. "Was that your brother we saw ya with?"

Hakkim nodded and smiled, his teeth glowing in the moon light. "Nassir. He is dear to me, he is the one who makes me laugh."

Rose gave him a contained smile, "know what y'mean. I'd do anything for my little brother, Tony," she shared his name as Hakkim had shared Nassir's.

"I have travelled the desert for him. Something tells me...you have done much for your brother's safe keeping, as well."

The Doctor, walking behind the two of them, looked at Rose's back when Hakkim made this statement, saw her stiffen a little, almost imperceptibly. She didn't respond.

When the moon set, Hakkim was suitably impressed by the two non-desert dwellers and the progress they had made. Rose marched without slowing, the Doctor ambled at a pace to exceed, match or fall short of hers at any given time, always nearby. Both exclaimed that the dried lizard meat Hakkim offered them was actually quite good and he laughed at them for it.

Light was threatening to break over the desert when the ground began to shake.

"On here, on here!" Hakkim, having dove immediately for the broad disc, gestured to his companions. They quickly scrambled onto the platform and watched as the sands about them shifted chaotically. The dunes about them settled and flattened to the point where they could make out green against the backdrop of the sand, a hazy blue in the waxing light. They watched, fascinated, as the water at the centre of the plant life drained away, leaving a muddy crater in its wake.

Then the sand in front of them erupted, the creature emerging with a hissing that sounded like the shifting sand itself. Its face, it had to be supposed from the mouth-like orifice and pair of objects that looked to be eyes, towered above them. Rose unholstered her blaster, Hakkim said a prayer and the Doctor gazed at it in wonder.

"Beautiful," the Doctor whispered, the word lost in the roar of the waterfall of sand cascading off of the creature.

The sounds it made intensified as the creature landed and moved closer to them, maw open. Rose swallowed and primed her blaster but Hakkim stepped off the platform in front of her before she could fire, his canteen raised as an offering. The creature came within an inch of him and stopped. Chest heaving, Hakkim didn't move nor close his eyes. Rose and the Doctor looked on in wonder as long, thin tendrils snaked from the creatures mouth to gently probe the canteen.

"Ma," Hakkim whispered and stepped forward, laid a hand on the creatures lip before tipping the canteen into its mouth.

"Doctor," Rose said quietly as they both stepped off the platform, "look at it...it should look...I dunno, wet on the inside, shouldn't it?" She kept her blaster steadied in both hands as they approached but her eyes scanned the creature's mouth and tendrils, noting their shriveled appearance.

"Yeah," the Doctor agreed. "Hakkim's got the right idea. And did you see the way it moved? It was struggling on the sand, just like we do." The look of wonder he had given the creature had faded and now he merely stared at it sadly before laying his hands beside Hakkim's, on the creatures lip. He closed his eyes, concentrated.

"No..." the Doctor whispered. "It's all wrong, isn't it? It's all wrong..." He shifted a little and his companions watched him. "It's dying," he said aloud for their benefit, "and it's in pain."

"We could help it," Rose said at once, staring up at the great mass before them, her weapon still leveled at it. "What does it need?"

"Well," the Doctor inhaled, "for starters, it needs water, was born in water, evolved to live in water."

"The Valiant-" Rose began as Hakkim withdrew his canteen and corked it.

"No," the Doctor said, opening his eyes and looking up at the creature. He patted it as one would an old friend, his smile sad. "Doesn't belong here, wouldn't belong where ever we put it." He sniffed and looked aside at his companions. "I'm going to put it to sleep." He found Rose's eyes and she lowered her weapon finally, then stepped around Hakkim to the Doctor's side. She raised a hand to tentatively brush his forearm, strengthening the touch to a grip as he closed his eyes.

Rose had wanted their connection back so badly in the last few months, since finding him again, but never more so than in that moment. She pushed but couldn't feel it, couldn't find his mind in the fog that surrounded her own. Her physical touch had to suffice, even though it didn't, not for either of them.

Within minutes the creature's breathing stilled and it sagged, forcing the three humans before it to move away. The Doctor let his hands fall from the creature as it fell, his eyes opening again. He slipped his hands into the pockets of his trousers and smiled bittersweetly at the creature, then at Rose who gave his arm one last squeeze before releasing it.

She stepped back, looked away for a moment to holster her blaster, the looked up and let out a 'Ha!'

The two men turned to look as Rose ran around the creature to it's belly.

"Gave us a gift, it did!" She called out as they followed. Beneath the beast, drudged up from the depths by virtue of having been stuck to one of its massive armour plates, was the Rdis.

The Doctor let out a 'whoop!' and ran over to the ship, hugged it with his face pressed firmly to the blue wood. Rose sent up a report to the Valiant on her comm.

"Arrange for them to get this thing," the Doctor said to her, standing from his embrace with the ship.

"It's not ours," Rose said to him as she clicked off the comm, staring at him hard.

Giving a great inhalation, the Doctor sighed. "Yeah...but it doesn't belong here. We wouldn't be taking it for Torchwood's sake, we'd be taking it for their's," he turned and nodded at Hakkim who still stood near the creature's mouth.

Slowly the bedouin approached them, eyed the Doctor intently. "Tell me...do you know what this thing is?"

The Doctor smirked at him. "I'm not sure you'd believe me if I told you."

Gazing up at the mass of the creature that towered above them, Hakkim smiled and looked back down at the Doctor. "I have seen you do impossible things just now, things I would not believe without the truth of them in my eyes. I may have to believe you."

Rose smiled at him for that, the Doctor leaned back on the Rdis and slipped his head covering off. "We got a very strange signal before we landed, coming from the desert. Desert's are tricky things, great big spaces full of sand, one of the trickiest things, sand is." He drew a breath and the three of them looked out over the golden dunes of the stuff, near blinding in the morning sun. "Sand was used to measure time at the dawn of countless civilisations, the smallest of rocks counting off the smallest increments of time. Powerful stuff. Comes from mountains, great big stones that watch time, that are destroyed by it. Something happened to time here," he frowned at Hakkim in great concentration and the bedouin watched him just as intently. "the sand catalyzed it, whatever it was, and that creature came through to the future of its spatial reality. The colour of its shell," the Doctor's eyes flicked up to the beast, "it and others like it are responsible for the rocks that eventually made the Rub al Khali desert, out of the oceans that used to be here millions of years ago."

Hakkim eyed the Doctor with some disbelief.

The Doctor just shrugged. "That's why it was going after the water. Sad thing is, in all the commotion it made, it was draining the water before it could get to the oases. It knew that thirst you were speaking of, Hakkim."

Resting a hand on the beast, Hakkim nodded and smiled. "Thank you for your help."

"And for yours," Rose removed her own head covering, crossed her arms and squinted at Hakkim in the impossible desert light. "You know, Torchwood could always use people who are afraid of the rights things," Rose offered.

"British, American, you are all the same. You think the whole world envies how you live." Hakkim smiled at Rose, shaking his head slightly.

Rose didn't smile back but replied pointedly. "Some people envy a place where ya can't be put to death just for lovin' someone."

The Doctor looked back and forth between Rose and Hakkim perplexedly a minute before he dropped his jaw, his mouth forming an 'O' in understanding.

Hakkim's smile slid from his face as he looked from Rose slowly to the Doctor then back again.

"You could bring Nassir-" Rose continued.

"No," Hakkim shook his head sadly, looked at his feet, then stood tall, his shoulder's square. "My tribe has lost too much...there are...responsibilities, bigger things than myself to think about. I know you understand," he said just as pointedly to Rose.

Rose gave him a small smile then, nodded, shook his hand.

Closing his mouth, the Doctor stepped to within an inch of Hakkim, their brown eyes sharing an intense look. "Good man," the Doctor whispered before leaning in to kiss him.

Hakkim didn't waste the opportunity. His hands gripped the Doctor's hair and waist, drawing the other man into his body. They breathed one another in as their mouths met with a shared fierceness. Rose stood aside and watched shamelessly, a brow quirked, a smile lurking at the corner of her mouth.

When they broke apart, Hakkim stepped back. "Tabib," he nodded at the Doctor, "Warda," at Rose, "Ma'a salama." And he turned away, began walking from them. The Doctor watched him go as Rose stepped toward the Rdis.

When he entered the ship, Rose started up the engines and set them on course. The Doctor walked up to her, hands in his pockets, and leaned on the console.

"You _snogged_ him, I mean, you _properly_ snogged him," she said, nodding her head in seeming approval of her words or perhaps his actions. She looked aside at him and saw the Doctor half smiling, half pleased with himself.

"Weeell, I know what it's like to be separated from your partner of choice," he paused and looked at Rose who quickly diverted her eyes back to the view screen, uncertain if he meant her or the Time Lords, possibly both.

Clearing her throat, Rose said, "nothin' to do with the fact that he was fit, then?"

The Doctor sniffed, "he was fit, wasn't he?"

They looked aside at one another, smiles slowly forming on their lips.

Quickly, as though afraid he would lose the nerve if he hesitated, the Doctor laid his hand atop Rose's on the console and reached out to her mind, seeking their old connection. She merely looked at him and smiled, the connection nowhere to be found, and he shuttered his mind again sadly, withdrawing his hand from hers. She bumped him affectionately with her shoulder and returned to looking at the view screen, unaware of his intent. He wondered if Rose knew she had closed herself off from him. He hoped she didn't, that it wasn't deliberate, but he had now way of knowing besides asking her. Looking around the Rdis, finally settling back on her, he decided he couldn't ask her, not just then, not after sharing an adventure that had felt like old times.

-#-

A shower in the Torchwood locker room separated by a tiled partition saw Rose and the Doctor laughing ridiculously at one another, much to the astonishment of the personnel using the facilities alongside them. They couldn't help it. Months had gone by with them, for the most part, deliberately not bringing up their past. Their adventure to Yemen, small and relatively safe as it was, was enough to remind them that the memories they were hiding from were good, really good.

After cleaning up, Rose had to meet with Pete and a few other choice big wigs about Yemen and the Doctor had to brief Bio on the massive creature the Valiant would shortly be depositing in Hanger one.

It was dark by the time they bumped into each other in the stairwell, grinned and picked up where they had left off.

"Gift of bodily salivas, _my arse_!" Rose got out in between fits of laughter, laughter the Doctor joined her in and provoked. They were in the jeep driving home, in nothing of a rush, having too much fun recollecting bygone times.

"It's really not nice to speak ill of the dead," the Doctor said with mock solemnity before a grin split his face and they broke down again.

"Yeah, poor old Moxx," Rose conceded, calming somewhat, "might've been a bit of karma, that, don'tcha think?"

Shaking his head, the Doctor smiled and pressed his fingers to his lips, unwilling to discuss the possibility.

"Now, the Face of Boe, there was a nice...face," Rose chuckled.

The Doctor turned excitedly in his seat to face her, "the Face of Boe! I never told you, I can't believe I never told you!"

"What-" Rose barely got out before the Doctor launched into his story.

"So Martha n'me, we land in Cardiff for a bit of fuel, right, and _hnggg._ " Pitching forward, the Doctor only just managed to stop his head from hitting the dash as an incredibly powerful psychic presence assaulted him.

"Doctor!" Rose reached out a hand to him as she assessed the next point she could safely pull over.

His hand reached out to clutch her shoulder. "Keep driving," he ground out through clenched teeth, "get us to your mum's."

A flash of incomprehension sped across Rose's face at this, followed by concentrated concern as she laid on the gas. They ripped through London, dodging traffic wildly, the Doctor breathing in short spurts in the passenger seat, his eyes crammed shut.

The Doctor's door was opened before they had properly stopped and he was dashing up the broad steps of the mansion, Rose close on his heels. Raised voices and sobbing drew them to the kitchen and they both stopped dead in the doorway, just for a second, at what they saw. Then Rose moved, tactical training beaten into her by Torchwood combining with a pure Tyler fury. She ran at Pete and caught him unawares with a brutal right jab, off balancing him, before linking her hands round the back of his neck and driving her knee into his groin. He nearly had a foot on her and he fell like a sack of stones.

Rose dropped quickly to one knee beside Jackie who was slumped against the stainless steel fridge, sputtering incomprehensible things through tears and the blood that seeped from her nose and mouth.

The Doctor stayed still a moment longer, witnessing this, before he ran from the kitchen, taking the stairs to the second floor two at a time. "Tony?!" He called out frantically. He opened the door to the boy's room and, panting, said gently, "Tony?"

When no response came, he fought down panic and calmed his breathing, closed his eyes and reached out with his mind. Tony's presence glowed like a torch in the telepathic space the Doctor surveyed behind his closed eyes.

Dropping down to a knee, the Doctor leaned his head down and looked under the bed, looked at the tear stained face that was so much like Rose and the small blue box clutched to the child's chest. "It's okay, Anthony, just me," the Doctor whispered, smiling at the boy and extending a hand. At the same time, he reached out to the boy's mind and it was that more than anything that made Tony crawl toward him. Hauling him out from under the bed, the Doctor swept Tony into his arms and held him tightly, a momentary memory of his daughter at Tony's age flashing through his mind.

Through their connection, the Doctor felt Tony's fear at the sounds of the fight, so great he didn't dare call out. He stroked the child's head as he walked down the stairs with him and out to the jeep.

Rose rushed to greet them, running her hands over Tony's head and shoulder's, looking for signs of harm. She pulled them toward the jeep and the Doctor didn't hesitate in climbing into the cramped backseat with Jackie and Tony. Rose started the vehicle and put it into gear, caused it to spit gravel as she tore away. Heavy breathing was all that could be heard within the jeep as the adrenaline lingered in each of them.

"We're okay," the Doctor said with his usual brightness though so low it was barely audible. He was whispering to Jackie and Tony. "Look at us, all okay, eh?"

Rose cast a glance at the rear view and saw him in the backseat, arms around her mother and brother, rocking them both against his chest as he whispered calming reassurances to them. Their eyes met and the fury in Rose's was reflected in his, at complete odds with the tone he was using to calm the Tylers.

"We're okay," Rose heard him say again, "we're just fine."

-#-

They arrived at the flat and Rose helped her mum up, the Doctor taking Tony in his arms. Rose didn't bother asking the Doctor if he was okay with the boy, just said, "I'm gonna clean mum up," and motioned toward the bathroom. He nodded at her and she saw him press his lips to Tony's head as she turned away, his eyes still stormy, reminding her of his former self.

It was her mother's silence that bothered Rose most as she tended to her. Nothing had ever shut Jackie Tyler up, she took it as her god given right to be as loud, verbose and opinionated as she pleased. Now there was an ache, maybe even shame in her features and her daughter had to steel herself in order to not look away. Rose never looked away, not anymore, not from any horror this universe presented to her. She wasn't going to fall back on old habits with her mother in pieces before her.

"Cuppa?" Rose asked quietly, forcing a small smile for her mother's benefit. To Jackie's credit, she returned it, let herself be gently brought to her feet with her daughter's support.

Jackie went to the Doctor once they left the bathroom, Rose to the kitchen. Tony was hanging limply in the Doctor's arms, asleep, his limbs draped over the Doctor's thin frame. His mother brushed a hand over her son's head, looked hesitantly up at the Doctor and, upon seeing the darkness in his eyes, looked quickly away.

"You think I'm daft," she whispered.

Those words made the Doctor smirk as he looked over his shoulder, saw Rose leaning against the entrance to the kitchen, watching them. "I think..." he began slowly, "I think you are...brave...and much more adventurous than you give yourself credit for." He nodded to himself in approval of his assessment as Jackie looked up at him, perplexed. Removing an arm from Tony's back, the Doctor drew her into a hug, her face next to her son's. He spoke softly, his cheek pressed to the top of Jackie's head. "You came to a...a universe that is different in all the little...all the comforting ways, left everyone you knew behind in the hopes that you could...build a life with a man who died twenty years ago, and look," he leaned back and Jackie did likewise so they could look at Tony's sleeping face. "Look at that, not bad, not bad at all." He smiled warmly at Jackie. "All of that...all that was very Rose Tyler of you, Jackie, and I can pay you no higher compliment than that."

The Doctor drew Jackie back into the hug as she started to cry and he rocked her and her son. Watching them, Rose's heart ached, in so many ways for so many reasons and she had to look away, busy herself with the tea.

When Rose returned, her mother was on the couch, Tony cradled in her arms, the Doctor sitting beside her. Rose handed her mother a mug and sat down on the coffee table facing her. She smiled at Jackie and reached a hand to brush the older woman's bangs behind her ear. "Is this the first time this's happened, mum?"

Jackie nodded. "Not like we haven't had rows, s'normal isn't it? But it was different tonight, he was..." she shook her head, drank her tea. Rose rubbed Jackie's shoulder, tried to look her in the eyes but she avoided the inquistive look. "Tony and me, we should get to a hotel, there's no room here," Jackie said abruptly with forced normalcy.

"You're not goin' anywhere, there's plenty of room here," Rose said, shaking her head at her mother. "You can share w'me and and we'll put Tony on the couch, which means he'll be sharin' with us too when he wakes up at three in the mornin.'" This drew a small smile out of Jackie.

"Or," the Doctor chimed in, reaching for the sleeping boy, "he can sleep in my room and I'll take the couch." Jackie kissed her son and handed him over. Rose stood with the Doctor so she could likewise press a kiss to her brother's temple, her eyes flicking to the Doctor's as he walked away.

He returned quickly and found a cup of tea for him waiting, along with curious looks from the Tyler women. "What?" he asked.

"Mum was just askin' how we knew to come," Rose frowned at him, having forgotten the episode in the jeep which had led them to the mansion. "What happened?"

Something in the Doctor's eyes flickered, Rose saw, as if in hesitation, as if the question made him anxious.

The Doctor took a lengthy draught of tea, his eyes on both women watching him. He set his mug down. "Tony called me," he said finally.

"What d'ya mean, he called you? He's not three, he can't use the phone," Jackie immediately argued, causing the Doctor to smile briefly to himself.

"Not _called_ , Jackie, not by phone. His mind reached out to me." Looking guilty, the Doctor raised his gaze from his lap to Rose, found her watching him intently.

"How could he have done that? You said humans aren't telepathic," Rose gave words to her confusion. Her mother looked back and forth between them, more lost than her daughter.

The Doctor ran a hand through his hair. "Weeeell, children usually possess low grade telepathic ability, has to do with their imagination, and the fact that they're not...not quite fully formed yet. It's usually...faint, though."

Rose shook her head slowly. "What happened in the car wasn't _faint_ , you looked like ya were gonna, I dunno, pass out from it."

Shifting in his seat to buy himself a second, the Doctor looked out the window, avoiding Rose's eyes. "Tony bonded to me when we first met, very strongly. I keep a wall up around him, to protect him from my thoughts, but he's there, all the time."

"What the bleedin' hell are you on about?" Jackie asked sharply, causing Rose to lay a hand on her thigh and shush her before looking back at the Doctor.

Another related inquiry suddenly became more pressing for Rose and her eyes bore into the Doctor's. "I thought..." she inhaled, licked her lips, "I thought maybe in your new body...that you couldn't form those kinds'a connections anymore."

Eyes softening in sadness at the implication, the Doctor noted how Rose's breathing had increased. He shook his head.

For the first time since they had been reunited, Rose bit her lip, just for a second, a moment's weakness. "But...but I can't..."

"I know," the Doctor said, negating the need for her to finish the thought.

"And it's not because you...can't," Rose continued, leaving her mouth parted just so as the reason for the mental silence that had stretched between them became clear.

Again, the Doctor shook his head, his eyes never leaving hers.

"But you tried, yeah?" Rose asked, closing her mouth, straightening her back slightly.

The Doctor swallowed, rubbed his hands together. "I can't build a bridge if I can't see the other side of the river, Rose." He wanted to look away from the exhausted sadness he saw in Rose's eyes at his words. In one way, he was glad she hadn't known what she had been doing, in another, it didn't really matter. Her sub-conscious had walled herself off from him, a veritable mental smack to the face. Acceptance filled Rose's features, a grim look and she shook her head.

Jackie looked at the two of them, not speaking to one another, and shook her own head. "You're mad, the pair of you. Tell me, Doctor, this bond with Tony, does it hurt him?"

The question demanded a far more complex answer than Jackie had the capacity to handle at the moment, the Doctor knew. So he shook his head at her and Jackie stood, placed her hands on either side of the Doctor's face and leaned down to place a kiss on his forehead. "Thank you," she whispered to him.

"Pajamas are in the top drawer, mum," Rose called over her shoulder as her mother disappeared into her room. She stood and walked out to their balcony, sliding the glass door aside, the Doctor watching her go.

He looked at his hands, still kneading one another, and sighed. A few hours ago, an adventure, the good ol' days. Now...He looked up to Rose, leaning on the balcony and pulling on a fag. Domestics.

Groaning in a very un-Time Lord fashion, the Doctor pushed off the couch and went to the balcony. He stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets absentmindedly and looked out over the city.

"I fuckin' hate those things," Rose said quietly, though in a tone the Doctor suspected she saved for delivering life or death ultimatums. He wondered vaguely if she had ever delivered a life or death ultimatum. She pointed up at the great floating behemoths with the two fingers which pinched her fag. "Blockin' out the stars so the posh can have a good look down on everyone else." She took a drag, blew the smoke out in a stream.

"You thought they were beautiful, once, when we first came here," the Doctor reminded her.

Rose huffed an unamused breath through her nose, "stupid girl."

"Young girl," the Doctor defended her, leaning on the balcony beside her though careful to maintain some distance. He didn't need their psychic connection to feel the rage radiating off of her.

Shaking her head, Rose said, "you told us, you said gingerbread house and if we'd only-"

"Don't," the Doctor cut her off, then, more softly, "don't do that." He watched her put her face in her hands, smoke from her fag curling around her. He had never seen her wound so tightly.

"I just," Rose tried to force words out from between clenched teeth, "every time I think I can breathe something happens, an' that's always the way it's been in this stupid fucking universe." Her chest rose and fell deeply as she looked back up again, at the world she was talking about. "And I am...fucking furious, every minute of every day," she spat.

Watching her body quiver as she spoke, catching the glint in her eye, the Doctor was convinced of her words.

They both saw the car pull up, the vehicle drawing their undivided attention. "S'him," Rose said breathed, ducking from the balcony. The Doctor marveled at how quickly she drew her weapon as they ran down the stairs to the street. Pete had only just stepped from the car when Rose told him to stand to. He turned slowly and regarded her blaster.

"You really gonna kill your dad then?" He asked.

Rose eyed him over the sights. "I already did, 20 years ago, didn't I ever tell ya?" She flicked the safety off and the weapon hummed threateningly. "An' I loved that man a whole helluva lot more'n I love you."

"You should leave, Pete," Doctor said quietly, a step behind Rose's shoulder.

"Don't you dare tell me what to do," Pete spat at him, his fury blazing momentarily.

"Do it for your son, leave them alone for a while," the Doctor tried again.

"I told you-" Pete began to rage again, prompting Rose to fire a short shot at his feet, silencing him fairly effectively.

Narrowing his eyes, the Doctor regarded the other man for a moment. "I wonder," the Doctor murmured. He stepped around of Rose and approached Pete.

"What're y-" Pete began but the Doctor sprang on him before he could react, jamming his palms against the other man's temples. It was a psychic connection without any of the conscientiousness the Doctor usually showed to beings whose minds he invaded. He was being deliberately rough and not caring, even enjoying the pain he inflicted a little. Pete had to grip the Doctor's shoulders to keep from falling down, no hint of fight in him as he jammed his eyes shut.

The Doctor let Pete go and the ginger dropped to his knees, heaving, his eyes still shut tight. "Do you see?" The Doctor growled, stepping back and glaring down at the man before him, "Do you see what your son thinks of you? There's nothing his father can't do, no feat you can't achieve. He expects to go to the stars with you!"

Pete began to shake as he slowly looked up to the Doctor.

The Doctor knelt next to Pete, his eyes boring into the other man's. "Be _that_ man," he said firmly before levering off a knee and walking back to Rose.

Rose had dropped her weapon but not holstered it. She didn't look at the Doctor. "An' if ya come 'round here for them again, I'll kill ya," she said to her not-father and the night, a statement of fact, fearless. Then she turned on her heel and walked back up to their flat, the Doctor following.

Both inside, Rose closed the door and slid the chain home, left her palm lying against the wood a moment. "It okay if I stay up a bit?"

"Yeah," the Doctor responded, turning from her to half sit, half lie on the couch. He was surprised but not when Rose sat with her back against his shoulder, more upright than he was, facing the door, blaster still in her hand. "I could stay up if you want, keep an eye out," he offered.

"S'okay, m'not tired," Rose replied.

Looking to his side, the Doctor considered the warmth of her on his arm, how her shoulder blades poked through her shirt. "Funny, I think I finally understand the distinction between not being tired and not being able to sleep."

Rose looked over her shoulder at him and his eyes traced the soft curve of her cheek bones, her full lips. When she finally fell asleep, he wasn't far behind, had just enough presence of mind to slip the gun from her hands and click the safety on before setting it on the table.


	4. The Things we do for Those we Love

"Morning Sweetheart! Cuppa?" Jackie's voice cut through Rose and the Doctor's sleep and it was her face they both saw upon opening their eyes. She smiled knowingly at them and put two mugs on the coffee table. Rose and the Doctor looked to the side at the mugs, then faced forward and found themselves confronted with each other. The Doctor was on his back, both arms wrapped around Rose's waist. Rose had raised her head from the Doctor's chest, where it had lain the whole night. One hand was also pressed to his chest, the other was at his temple brushing a sideburn.

They swallowed simultaneously, then shared a nervous smile.

"Good morning," he said softly to her.

"Yeah..." Rose regarded him a second longer, pressed her fingers more insistently to his temple, hoping for the connection. But she couldn't be sure if she felt the spark of it or not, painfully aware as she was of the Doctor's proximity to her in multiple other physical dimensions. "Thanks, you know, for everything last night," she whispered.

The Doctor shook his head a little and Rose gripped at his chest with the hand that rested there in response. What she missed about their connection was the insight she had into his feelings and thoughts, especially on subjects he found hard to put words to. She pressed up off of him to the protests of both of their bodies and they sat drinking tea side by side. Tony assaulted them within seconds, crawling over both of them with vigor until Rose firmly shoved the boy onto the Doctor.

"Shower," was all Rose said, leaving them on the couch.

Bouncing Tony on his knee, the Doctor asked for and half-listened to an update of Tony's adventures in life as he looked over his shoulder. He watched Rose hug her mother and share a few words with her before going to the bathroom. His eyes lingered on Jackie's back as she bustled about in the kitchen, then drifted to the closed bathroom door.

"Rose?" The Doctor called through the door and Rose opened it a crack, already undressed and just about to step under the water. She looked at him with a raised brow in question.

"How about I stay home from the Tower today, keep an eye on these two," he tipped his jaw down in the direction of Tony who squirmed in his arms.

Rose considered her brother for a moment, smiling at him and reaching out a hand to tweak his nose. Then she looked back up at the Doctor, "I've got three tonnes of dead prehistoric bug sitting in Hanger two. Bio might be at a loss without ya'," she pointed out.

A slow smile spread across the Doctor's face as he spared this a thought. "Tell them to build a reeeally big ice box." His smile bloomed into a grin when Rose let out a short laugh at that.

"Oh they're gonna love me," she said.

Removing Tony's fingers from where they had just jammed into his lips and nose, the Doctor looked at her a bit more solemnly. "You're indispensable, they'll hardly miss me for a day or two."

Rose felt her heart make a leap for her throat as she looked into the Doctor's brown eyes, considered that he was offering to look after her family just in case. She nodded at him and he had turned away when she said, "Doctor," and drew him back. "Thank you, I mean it, really...thank you."

He smiled at her over his shoulder, her little brother wiggling in his grasp.

-#-

Rose felt her body humming like a taught wire as she entered Torchwood Tower that day, alert for anything out of the ordinary. On some level, she knew she didn't have to worry about most of the personnel, they wouldn't take an order from Pete to do her any harm. But she was her father's daughter and she knew what she was capable of, a truth that made her incredibly wary of the other Tyler.

The day, however, progressed with maddening normalcy, the exception being when Rose stepped into Bio one to find the floor deserted. She made a pit stop in on Hanger two just to watch the twenty or so scientists swarming around the creature they had absconded from Yemen with.

Rose was slipping some files into a shoulder bag to bring home with her when her comm buzzed.

" **Bad Wolf? Can I see you in my office, please?** " Pete's voice, though it broke the silence of her office, was oddly subdued and certainly overly entreating compared to how he normally addressed her.

"Comin' up," she said simply, then looked at her comm a moment, her mind divided between plotting all possible exits and entries form Pete's office and wondering what she would say if all he wanted to do was talk. Verbal communication actually seemed the more difficult prospect in that moment.

Rose took the safety off of her blaster and replaced the weapon in its holster while she walked up the three flights of stairs that separated her and Pete's offices. When she entered the room, she stayed by the door and waited for him to come to her. _Stairwells_ , Rose thought, _bottlenecks and surprisingly good cover in a pinch_.

Pete stood with his fingertips resting on his desk surface, looking like much less of an arrogant bastard than he usually did. He watched Rose scan the room for signs of an ambush and almost smiled.

"It's just us," he said softly and indicated the chairs in front of his desk. He watched her eyes drift to the wall behind his desk, then settle on him again. She didn't move. "Right."

"Say your piece, then," Rose prompted, looking at him hard. A flash of her mother sobbing on the floor of her own kitchen ripped through her mind and Rose felt her trigger finger twitch.

"How are they?" Pete asked plaintively.

Rose closed her eyes a second, shook her head a little as her mouth worked to find words. "Don't ask me stupid questions," she managed finally, her jaw set when she had finished speaking.

Pete looked at his feet and nodded. When he looked back up at Rose, she could see he was as lost for words as she was.

"Would you tell her..." He saw Rose tense at the very thought of delivering any message for him, "that I want to see her...not, not right away, I mean she must be..." He ran a hand over his balding head and sighed deeply.

"S'Jackie's decision when n'if she wants to see ya," Rose said when he didn't continue.

"Yeah," Pete said quietly as he turned to look out the window. "You know, I really thought I had a second chance."

He didn't elaborate and Rose couldn't offer him pity she didn't have, so she went to leave. She turned, though, halfway through the door. "She said you'd never hit her before. Is that right?"

Pete didn't turn around. "Come on, Bad Wolf. You wouldn't believe me whatever I said."

-#-

The Doctor admired how Jackie didn't try to cover up her wounds, which looked less severe than he would have thought they would. But there was no hiding her left eye, completely shot through with blood, and how her bottom lip had swelled. He'd never spent enough time with her before to really appreciate the more subtle traits she had gifted to her daughter, her strength chief among them.

Halfway through the day the Doctor took them shopping, to Jackie's initial delight until she saw what they were shopping for. His respect at her refusal to mask her injuries dimmed somewhat when he realised why people were glaring at him in the shops. The notion that he was capable of beating anyone who didn't deserve it, and really, even anyone who did was laughable. The implication that he had fathered the child in his arms with the woman at his side made him even more uncomfortable.

Still, bags in hands, Tony on the Doctor's shoulders, they rode the tube home and had the heavy stuff delivered. Most of the rest of the afternoon was spent with the Doctor and Jackie putting the plants they had acquired into pots on the balcony while Tony amused himself digging in a bag of dirt bigger than he was.

Rose arrived home to the smell of something delicious, her mother on the couch watching telly and Tony giggling as he clung to the Doctor's back while the latter attempted to set their small table for tea.

"Here's herself then," Jackie said in greeting as Rose stopped to kiss her cheek.

"How are ya?" Rose quickly assessed her mother's wounds, smiling a little as the older woman told her she felt fine and had she seen that new program? The one with the handsome bloke from channel five?

"Wose!" She grabbed her little brother off of the Doctor and they spun about on the spot before Rose brought his face to hers and she kissed him several times. Then she set him down and found the Doctor's sparkling eyes, the smile twitching up the corner of his lips and smiled ever so slightly in kind. Tony squirmed, still in his sister's grip. "How comes I only get kisses? I hate kisses!"

Rose smirked at the implication that she should've kissed the Doctor as well but dropped her eyes immediately from his. "Oh, y'know, must be because I love to torture you!" She picked Tony up again and began tickling him as she walked back to the door. "'Sides, it's payment, innit? For when I do nice things like this," and she stooped and withdrew his Tardis toy from a bag she had brought home.

Tony squealed and fell on his toys with glee and Rose looked up at her mother, nodded to another bag she had brought indicating that she had picked up some things from the mansion.

It was as they were finishing dinner that Rose began spinning her glass of wine by the base, her eyes focused on the motion as she considered her conversation with Pete.

"...And that woman wanted five quid for it! Spaceball over here was about to up and pay her-"

"It would've made a great experiment!" The Doctor cut in on Jackie.

"An' I said to her-"

"Mum," Rose cut in, silencing the other woman. In the last two years Rose had cultivated a tone that at least gave her mother pause, if it failed to shut her up for long, a testament to the commanding nature Rose had developed. "I saw him today," she continued, leveling her eyes on her mother.

The mirth evaporated from the table.

"Yeah, an' what's he got to say for himself then?" Jackie said said with her trademark feigned indifference.

Rose pushed her only half-empty wine glass away from her. "That he wants to see ya." She watched her mother contemplate this before continuing. "I told him it was up to you whether you wanted to or not." For once, Jackie seemed unable to find a slew of words let alone a handful to string together. "I want ya to know, yeah? You n'Tony can stay here long as you need, an' we'll sort this out."

"Oh, sweetheart," Jackie finally said, "you haven't got room for us-"

"Ya can take my room-" Rose intoned.

"Oh? You two gonna be sharin' then?" Jackie's eyes danced with glee in a teasing fashion as she nodded first to Rose then the Doctor, but there was also a spark of happiness in her at the thought.

"What?" Rose asked.

"No," the Doctor denied, shaking his head, avoiding Rose's eyes as she avoided his. "I'll take the couch, you and Tony can take my room. I like to be up and about at night anyway," he brushed away the awkwardness of Jackie's comment.

The silence stretched though, so the Doctor knew he couldn't make it any worse. "You should let Tony see Pete, though."

The Tyler women glared at him, Rose with the most force. "Where's that comin' from then?" She said, low and dangerous.

At that moment, Tony bounded up to his mother from the living room. "Can we see Daddy tonight?" He asked, leaning on Jackie's thigh and looking innocently up at her.

Rose looked at her brother then slowly back to the Doctor who had rested his chin his palm and was giving her a knowing look.

-#-

Having Jackie and Tony at their flat went smoother than Rose anticipated and she had to acknowledge that it had a lot to do with the Doctor diffusing tensions left right and centre. She had confided to him that she wanted them to stay because they could keep a better eye on them that way. He hadn't argued. In fact, Rose got the distinct impression that some security features may have been added to the flat over the course of a few nights.

Weeks drifted by and the Doctor returned to work. He chaperoned visits between Tony and Pete on several occasions and became convinced that if nothing else, Pete was waiting for Jackie to go to him. She eventually did, meeting her husband at a restaurant while Rose sat outside in the Jeep fingering her blaster on occasion.

Rose feared for her mother, she told the Doctor later that night as they sat on the couch watching the Torchwood signals channel. It was the second time they fell asleep there together and woke up in each other's arms in the morning, feeling each other's mental presence fleetingly. Unable or unwilling to acknowledge how much they both craved it, the Doctor and Rose began falling asleep on the couch at the end of the day as though by accident. Inch by inch, their psychic connection reasserted itself with their proximity in the moments when their mental defenses were weakest.

-#-

"Oooh, you look good in that," the Doctor enthused, leaning over the table from which Rose was withdrawing numerous weapons and tactical objects and slipping them into pouches on her belt. She also wore a blast-proof (inasmuch as they could test for _pure_ blastproofness given the shocking variety of blasters that existed in the universe) vest under her blue leather jacket. He winked at her.

They were in Hanger two with 25 other tactical personnel all suiting up for a routine orbital meeting with a passing Xai Moche cruiser. Friendly relations had been established with the Xai Moche about a year prior when it was discovered they had a deep affection for marmite. Two crates of the yellow labelled spread sat in a corner of the hanger and would travel with them.

Rose clenched her jaw to keep from grinning and did her best to ignore him as she would any other male colleague who commented on her appearance. She knew he was just sore because she wasn't letting him come along.

"Come on _Bad Wolf_ ," the Doctor whined, picking up a 70 decibel auditory charge and tossing it up and down like a ball, "I'd be dead useful and you know it."

Rose snatched the charge out of the air with lightening speed, "ya'd be dead bored," she looked at him as if daring him to deny it.

Sniffing and scrunching his nose a second, the Doctor said, "yeah, yeah I would, BUT! I am at my most creative when I'm bored!"

With a heavy sigh, Rose shook her head, "no."

The Doctor picked up a blaster half the size of his chest and squinted down the sight before looking back up at Rose. "You just think I'm a liability because I refuse to carry one of these." He mentally poked her.

Rose could only look at him with all mirth gone and he had to wonder if she was sad that he didn't carry a gun or that she had come to find it necessary herself. "Ya are a liability 'cause ya won't carry one of these," she said softly, lifting the not insubstantial weight of the weapon from the Doctor's grip with one hand and setting it back down.

In the hanger, surrounded by personnel, Rose didn't reach for him before they left, didn't smile at him reassuringly. She mentally poked him as he stood with his hands in his pockets at the foot of the Horizon's stairs, looking up at her. He smiled weakly.

Much as she would've liked the Doctor to come along personally, Rose couldn't predict what effect he would have on her team's dynamic and how he would interact with their tactical response to any situation that arose. She made a mental note to try and convince him to, if not actively participate in Torchwood training, to at least observe it. Then she relaxed somewhat in her seat at the Horizon's helm and cracked wise with Abrams and Mclintock, two personnel she didn't see as often as she'd like.

-#-

The Doctor sat at home on the couch that night working on a Nimish light emitter he wanted to set up over the garden. He kept burning himself on one of the connections because he wasn't paying enough attention. Some very primal Time Lord part of him was railing against Rose's being up amongst the starts without him. Naturally, once Rose's ship had taken off, the Doctor had raced down to Hanger one to the Rdis and attempted to follow. He had stood gobsmacked as the console flashed a message at him, in Xai Mochian no less, that it was unable to follow the Horizon. Trying any number of variations of protocols that would allow him to get aboard the Horizon, the Doctor eventually walloped the console with the rubber mallet Rose had gotten him as a gift. "Come on!" His ship had betrayed him on Rose's command. He hadn't known whether to be furious or impressed.

So he sat watching the Torchwood signals channel at two in the morning, picking apart a bit of tech that was in truth, picking him apart right back. Radio chatter from the Horizon sparked from his comm device that sat on the table. Every hour Rose would chime in with a brief update. She and ten other personnel had been on board the Xai Moche ship for about three hours doing very diplomatic things the Doctor conceded, in his own head, that he would have found very dull.

The alarm that blared out of his comm snapped the Doctor to alert and his eyes zipped back and forth in thought as he listened to the flight personnel report that they were under attack. His comm erupted then with personnel on the Horizon issuing orders, asking for orders and the replies from Torchwood forces on the ground.

" **Horizon!** " Rose's comm message silenced all the others and the Doctor had to admire, even as he rushed to put on his jacket and shoes, that she had thought to install an override on the comm system for just such emergencies. " **Get your shield's up and retreat, try and draw them off-** " A bit of static. _Draw them off_ , the Doctor thought, _they're not under fire from the Xai Moche_. " **Primary, get Omnion on-line and the Helios in the air-** " Static then that did not abate and a second later the chaotic comm messages returned.

Torchwood was in upheaval when the Doctor got there, no place more so than Tech. The computers and monitors that lined the walls operated as the command centre in the event of, well, something exactly like what was happening. Turfing an officer out of one of the chairs at a terminal, the Doctor began typing furiously.

Whatever was attacking, it hadn't shown up on the signals channel. If it hadn't shown up on the signals channel, the Doctor reasoned, that would explain why Rose had ordered the Horizon to retreat rather than stand to and attack. Torchwood's instruments couldn't see what was after them. He scanned for any images the Horizon might've managed to get and found one with two of the unknown ships in the view. Slipping on his glasses, the Doctor peered at the ships, trying to identify them.

The Doctor had discovered that most of his knowledge of his home universe was transferrable to their new universe, that most of the species he had been familiar with he was still familiar with, more or less. And because he had spent so much time near Earth and its surrounds, he knew Earth's neighbours better than most.

"Inigustk," the Doctor whispered as his fingers began to move rapidly again. After a few minutes in which his growing impatience became apparent on his features, the Doctor brought his comm device to his lips. "Pete!" He yelled.

" **Doctor? Where the he-** "

"I can't access Omnion's controls, I need you to give me the entry codes," the Doctor cut him off.

" **No, in the event of an alien incursion Omnion control doesn't shift from the designated operators until-** " Pete began and was once again cut off.

"There's no time to explain!" The Doctor yelled again, startling some of the personnel beside him. "Give me the codes or your people are dead up there!"

The second Pete hesitated made the Doctor's stomach churn and he closed his eyes, exhaled shakily. He was sweating. He never used to sweat under duress, not when he was a Time Lord.

Pete returned to the comm spouting off a set of numbers and letters which the Doctor typed as they came in. He reprogramed Omnion, the massive plasma channel that had destroyed the Sycorax in his home universe, to emit a blanket of low energy electromagnetic impulses. The comm chatter exploded and the Doctor grinned and sighed as the Horizon and the fleet of smaller Helios ships, designed for sub orbital defense of the earth, began firing.

The Doctor's grin faded as he saw the signal for the Xai Moche ship stop blinking on his monitor. " **Xai Moche cruiser is out,** " came a snippet through the comm. He couldn't breathe. His mind had stopped working except for one thought. _Rose was on board_. Turning in his chair, the Doctor looked up to the massive monitor on the wall beside him where camera view from the Horizon was on display. Debris from the Xai Moche ship littered the space about the Horizon even as the few Inigustk fighters that remained, once a swarm, sped away in the background.

The comm chatter died again. Then, " **Horizon! Lock on to one of those ships with a Griese signal an' hold it!** "

Collapsing into the nearest chair, the Doctor began to laugh mostly so he wouldn't start crying from relief, he realised. Rose had given the order.

-#-

The Doctor had to give his new workplace credit. After the initial crisis, they responded with blunt efficiency to bring their personnel and ships home, along with a single Inigutsk raider. He went to Hanger two to watch the Horizon land, hands in his pockets, standing by the door as he had less than 24 hours prior. The Horizon deposited the much smaller Inigutsk raider first, placing it in a ring of xenon lamps the Doctor had instructed the Torchwood personnel to erect. The Greise signal had incapacitated the ship entirely, including it's life support systems. The Doctor wondered how Rose had known that it would. The Xenon light was deadly to the Inigutsk and would imprison them long enough for the Doctor to give them an ultimatum.

A Torchwood Tech brought the Doctor what looked like a ham radio with a rudimentary intercom attached to it via a curled cable. He raised the intercom to his lips and pressed the button on the side of it down as he watched the steps to the Horizon descend. After delivering an ultimatum to the Inigutsk, the Doctor dropped the intercom from his lips and watched as the personnel who had rushed on to the Horizon with stretchers returned with bodies.

The door to the Inigutsk raider opened with a hiss and the personnel surrounding the xenon cage cocked their blasters. When small green aliens staggered forth on three legs, unarmed the Doctor noted, he called out to the Bio workers that stood behind the personnel. The Bio workers rushed forward with tanks full of ethane and slipped masks over the Inigutsk's beaks, began leading them to the pressure chambers in Bio three as the xenon cage went offline. That done, the Doctor set the radio down and walked with no small amount of trepidation toward the Horizon. Her crew was still being evacuated along with some of the Xai Moche who had obviously been able to teleport aboard with Rose, some on foot, many on stretchers.

The Doctor felt his chest start to hurt when he saw Rose come down the Horizon's stairs at the side of a stretcher. She was focused on the woman on the stretcher, holding a bag of saline above her head. "Come on, Masika, come on!" He heard her saying through gritted teeth as they passed within a foot of him. He turned and watched her go, watched her limping and saw the dark burn on the back of the arm that held the saline. Then anger started to burn in him, nameless, blunt and sickening and he thought of Rose on their balcony, saying how much she hated this fucking universe.

He stayed out of her way and helped where he could. He translated for the Inigutsk and made certain no one got too trigger happy around them. He translated for the Xai Moche and assisted them in patching their wounded as no one else in Bio had encountered their physiology. In the periphery of his vision, he saw Rose taking reports, directing science workers and personnel in person or over a comm.

" _That would make sense_ ," the Doctor said in Xai Mochian to the commander of their ship, the captain having perished with its vessel, as Rose approached them.

" _Commander, I've got the head of the Shadow Directive on wave-link. Can you speak with him?_ " Rose asked, likewise in Xai Mochian.

The purple humanoid nodded and the Doctor and Rose both braced it so it could stand. The Doctor let Rose lead the alien to the vid-comm and stood back, hands in his pockets. He suspected Rose had contacted the Shadow Directive, this universe's equivalent of the Shadow Proclamation, before the Xai Moche in order to stave off a war between the neighbours. The Shadow Directive would deal with the Inigutsk, what with the ample proof of hostility they would now have thanks to Rose's quick thinking with the Greise signal. The Xai Moche would be bound by the Shadow Directive not to unilaterally retaliate against the Inigutsk home world. The Doctor suspected, and the Xai Moche commander agreed, that the Inigutsk had been trying to start a conflict between Earth and Xai Moche to make their own offensive on Xai Moche that much easier.

In a few more hours the Doctor finally saw Rose, in the first moment where someone wasn't demanding something of her, slip toward the lift. He took the stairs and met her at the infirmary, a floor to itself, thankfully rarely used, four levels from the ground.

Their eyes met and the Doctor sensed, rather than felt through their silenced psychic connection, that Rose was holding herself together with a great effort. He sensed he could've undone her right then and there with a single touch so he smiled instead. "Good job, Bad Wolf," he said quietly and fell into step alongside her as she went to the nearest bedside of one of the Horizon's crew. She checked the digital chart beside the bed, its occupant being unconscious.

"Hey Ally," Rose said to the woman in the next bed, giving her a wolfish grin, "that aim of yours puts me bloody shame, it does."

"Wouldn't a done, if someone hadn't made those fuckers light up like fireflies," came Ally's reply in a thick Brogue, muffled through the mask over her face delivering oxygen. "You let me know who did that, will ya Bad Wolf? I wanna shag them rotten."

Rose looked to the ground at her side and the white plimsolls that fidgeted there and smiled, then looked back at Ally. "I'll find out for ya, yeah?"

"Bad Wolf, if I have to amputate any one of your perfectly functioning limbs because you failed to seek medical attention in a timely manner, I might just have to let you die on the operating table." The woman's voice managed to sound amused and not at the same time, making it hard to tell if her threat was serious.

Rose and the Doctor turned to find an older woman in a lab coat glaring at Rose. Rose clicked her tongue, "yeah, been a bit busy doctor, you know how it goes, meetin' in the mornin', avertin' a war over tea."

The other doctor raised a brow at Rose and nodded in the direction of one of the rooms in the back. "Into the room."

Inhaling deeply, Rose forward marched, followed by the Doctor and the doctor.

"You," the doctor indicated Rose once they were within one of the infirmary's rooms, "strip. You," she indicated the Doctor, "outside."

"Stay," Rose said immediately, her eyes finding the Doctor's briefly as she sat on the paper covered table, wincing at her leg.

The Doctor nodded at her and slowly turned to face the wall as Rose and the doctor began to remove her blast-proof vest. His eyes fluttered closed at Rose's hisses of pain.

"Ya did good work with them out there, Sandra. Just cut it off," Rose said to the doctor, indicating her charred and bloody shirt, "s'ruined anyway."

"Lost more than I'd like, Bad Wolf," Sandra replied, bringing snub nosed shears up the other woman's torso, cutting through her t-shirt.

"More'n I'd like, too," Rose replied quietly before she groaned and bit down as Sandra began cutting at her pants around the fragment of the Horizon that was buried in her leg.

" _FUCK_ ," Rose ground out through clenched teeth as Sandra began extricating the shrapnel.

"Rose?" The Doctor called to her but her laboured breathing and small noises of pain were all she replied with. Looking down, the Doctor moved backwards to the table, avoiding bumping into Sandra, and reached his hand up until his fingers brushed Rose's. She latched onto him ferociously and the pain she was feeling spilled through the Doctor like water from an opened flood gate. Guiltily, the Doctor wondered how many times Rose had sat on this or some similar table and been stitched up without anyone to hold her hand.

"Who's this then?" Sandra asked, eyes focused on the bleeding around the wound.

"I'm John," the Doctor answered and, wincing, said peevishly, "you could be a bit more gentle!"

"What are you, a doctor?" Sandra bit back.

Amazingly, the Doctor felt a sliver of mirth from Rose at this exchange though it was quickly lost as Sandra brought a tissue stabiliser to Rose's wound. Pushing her face into the back of the Doctor's shoulder, Rose forced herself to breathe deeply.

"There we go," Sandra said after a while, straightening up.

When Rose's grip on him slackened, the Doctor stepped forward. "I'll be right back," he said.

"No," Rose said after him, unsure if he heard as the door closed.

Sandra looked at her charge with a raised brow. "Word in the Tower was that you didn't fraternise with anyone, Bad Wolf. I have to say, you could've chosen someone a bit more up to your standards to bend your reputation for."

Chuckling exhaustedly, Rose looked at Sandra. "That man set my standards."

He was back in a rush, breathing fast from the run, he handed a stack of clothes for Rose in through the door before stepping in himself, his back still to Rose.

"Nice to meet you John," Sandra said, catching his eye as she left, smiling at him in a slightly unnerving way.

The Doctor frowned in concentration at the white wall until Rose spoke.

"Doctor? I'm mostly decent, could ya give us a hand?"

Swallowing, the Doctor turned and glanced at Rose, who had managed jeans and a bra but no shirt, before looking at his feet and walking to her. The Time Lord in him was disgusted at the response his humanity was having to seeing her nearly half-naked, considering the conditions. He couldn't meet her eyes as he took the shirt she handed him and wrangled it appropriately. Bracing herself, Rose inhaled and lifted her arms up at the same time, straining the burn. Careful to be delicate around the wound, the Doctor placed the shirt over Rose's arms and head and tugged it down to her waist. Her hands fell into his, her eyes closed.

"What's left that needs doing?" The Doctor asked, brushing a thumb over Rose's knuckles.

She raised her head and she looked twice her age. "I've got to tell their families they're dead." Then her hands slipped from his and she walked toward the door, her limp no less pronounced.

"Rose, someone else could-" he began.

"No, someone else couldn't," she said firmly and all the Doctor could think was that she looked like a planet about to go supernova, like hell's fire tightly contained and at the ready.

It wouldn't be the last time he watched her deliver the news of the deaths of her personnel to their loved ones, not in the years they would share. But the Doctor would remember it, the strength of her and how he, the man who ran, stood in awe of her in the early hours of that day.

When they returned home, Jackie and Tony jumped on Rose and she flinched as they both touched her wounds. Shrugging them gently off, she headed to the bathroom without a word as they assaulted the Doctor next. Her family in his arms, the Doctor watched Rose close the bathroom door.

Jackie babbled at him as she made tea and served it, the Doctor leaning against the divider between the kitchen and living room, arms crossed, staring at the bathroom door. Rose was exhausted and her barriers had slipped a minute ago. He knew she was crying. Jackie stopped babbling when the Doctor walked to the bathroom door and took out his sonic, clearly not paying her any mind. Flashing the device against the lock, the Doctor slipped into the steam filled room.

"Funny, I remember lockin' that door," Rose said with more strength than she had. A couple of familiar 'bzzt' sounds from beyond the shower's glass made her close her eyes and smile.

The Doctor pocketed the sonic and sat down on the toilet. "Tell me their names," he said solemnly, reaching out to her mentally. And he listened as Rose listed them, choking on her tears as she did so, leaning against the shower wall, feeling the Doctor's mind around hers attempting to comfort.

The water stopped and the Doctor grabbed Rose's towel off the back of the door, offered it to her through the shower door when it cracked. When she stepped out, he was surprised by how he could barely tell she had been crying. He wasn't surprised by how she didn't look vulnerable or young, having stopped expecting her to in her weak moments a while ago.

"M'not sorry you weren't on board," she said quietly.

A flash of anger washed over him and he was glad she didn't feel it. He pulled her into a rough embrace, his long arms encircling her tightly, her crown digging into his cheek. It wasn't clear to him why he should feel guilty, he had been able to play a decisive role in preventing more lives from being lost, Rose among them, even from the ground. But he had wanted to be by her side and hadn't been and that made him crush her to his chest in apology.

-#-

The quiet of Torchwood returned with unnerving speed. Meetings and technical tinkering, hiring and chronal DNA triggering; Rose and the Doctor settled back into Torchwood like she hadn't nearly died just days previously and her limp improved fast enough that they could forget most of the time how close she had come.

Jackie and Tony moved back into the mansion and Pete and Jackie got into counseling. As wary as Rose was of this, the Doctor encouraged Pete in everything he did and every positive step he took. It left Rose wondering if he hadn't seen something of Pete's past the night they had taken Jackie and Tony away. She didn't ask though and the Doctor didn't offer. They were over at the mansion or the Tyler's were over at their flat for dinner every week though, without exception. Rose thought it was just like that universe to bring them all closer together through something so fucked up.

Rumour had it the Doctor had something to do with the victory over the Inigutsk but he denied it vehemently when asked directly. He had never liked being praised for anything except being clever and as far as he could see, the Torchwood personnel on the Horizon and Helios' deserved much more credit than he did. He let Pete thank him and Rose look warmly at him when the Inigutsk cloaking mechanism was mentioned. Otherwise, Rose was responsible for approving the final draft of the report on the incident and, as per his request, she put in what had been done to counter the Inigutsk technology without mentioning John Smith at all.

Coming back from lunch with Hasrat a few weeks later, the Doctor was grinning as Karen stormed up to him. "Every bloody time!" She growled at him.

He grinned at her. "Hallo Karen! What's 'every bloody time?' That a reference to the female menstrual cycle?"

The woman opposite him stepped back, livid. "Are you making a misogynist comment about my mood as it pertains to my time of the month?"

The Doctor frowned at her, rubbed the back of his neck. "No...no, technically I think you might've been, but you never quite got the chance to finish. 'Every bloody time' what?" He queried.

Opening and closing her mouth several times, Karen groaned in frustration at him and produced a small pouch with 'K. Engels' written on it in black marker. "You take my tools, my equipment, you _abscond_ with them for months at a time into that _cavern_ of yours, you _never_ return them. I'm sick of it. I'm reporting you to Bad Wolf. I want you turfed off of Tech two! Are you even listening to me?" Karen realised she must have lost her coworker at some point because he was staring, perturbed, at the tool kit in her hands.

"You went into the Shed?" The Doctor asked quietly, his frowning eyes drifting up to Karen's and stilling her. In the months to come, she would recollect to other colleagues how impossibly old John Smith's eyes looked in that moment.

"Doesn't feel very nice when someone invades your privacy, does it?" Karen asked, though with considerably less gusto than she had been ranting with a moment ago.

The Doctor didn't respond, instead he walked past her to the Shed which stood open, his eyes gliding over the contents within. They settled on the table upon which a feed of liquid helium connected to a vat, within which was a glass fiber mere microns thick suspended so it just contacted the first few molecules of a blue solution. Putting on his glasses, the Doctor walked up to the vat and examined the glass fiber. His jaw clenched and he leaned heavily on the table, closing his eyes as his breathing increased, perhaps trying to put out the fire he felt smoldering in his chest.

He turned abruptly and brushed past the gaggle of Tech workers who had accumulated around the Shed's entrance.

"Don't bother complaining to Bad Wolf, I've already talked to her about you!" Karen called, but the Doctor was into the stairwell and down two flights before she'd finished.

He ran.

-#-

Running was never something the Doctor considered doing for his health, it was more a fact of his existence. He loved it, the adrenaline, the burn you had to overcome to keep going. He loved the feeling that you could put something behind you if you just ran fast enough.

His heart slammed and his muscles protested in the chill of the mist that fell over London that grey afternoon and evening. Panicking, he began to feel he couldn't stop lest something catch up to him. Tears burned at the back of his eyes and he turned up the volume on the headphones he wore, though they were never loud enough, and he was never fast enough.

-#-

Stepping into Tech two, Rose looked around for the Doctor instinctively. Rarely was it she got to see him at work and then usually when he decided to horse around in a meeting he wasn't invited to, precluding any conversation on their part. Not seeing him, Rose walked over to Karen's bench.

"All right, let's get this over with. I'll tell him to give ya back your barbie and promise not to take her anymore."

Karen glared at Rose and Rose raised a brow at her, daring her to be snide in return.

"Thank you for coming, Bad Wolf," Karen managed to affect a civil tone, "but John ran off an hour ago after I confronted him."

Rose almost failed to stop the smile that jumped to her lips. " _You_ made him run away? What'd you do, make fun of his glasses?"

Karen failed to look amused but Rose was distracted by a soft cough behind her. She turned to find Peter looking at her, hesitant and worried.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, Bad Wolf, it's just that...I think John might have been...I dunno..." Peter hesitated.

Rose looked at him while he fidgeted with a pen a second. "John might've been what, Peter? Spit it out."

The young man leaned in and said quietly, "I think he was upset," looking up at Rose with concern writ clear across his face.

Rose frowned at him as Karen began a tirade behind them about how she had every right to reclaim her possessions. Ignoring that, she asked, "about something Karen said?"

Peter shook his head. "He was in the Shed and he just looked..." He sighed and shook his head and Rose suddenly worried that she knew how the Doctor had looked. The oncoming storm on the horizon. But why?

Turning, she left Karen shouting and Peter edging away form her to go to the Shed. She hadn't been in her old work space since the Doctor had moved in. It was decidedly more disheveled and crammed with more stuff, including some samples she suspected Bio might want back. She was making a mental note to seriously urge him to start respecting other people's things when she saw the blue solution and the cryo feed. Looking about on the desk, she found a magnifying glass and held it up to the glass fiber, then dropped it and looked into the middle distance.

"He was looking at that before he left," Peter supplied from the doorway.

Rose turned and smiled at him briefly. "Thanks Peter."

-#-

Knowing what had brought on whatever emotional upheaval the Doctor was likely going through made it marginally easier for Rose to sit at home instead of searching for him. Recalling their time on the Tardis, she knew he could be hard to find and that had been with the ship on her side, Rose knew. Finding him in London would've required calling in all of Torchwood and chances were good that he would return before they'd gone through half the city.

So when Rose came home and saw his hastily stripped suit in a heap on the floor of his bedroom, she had made herself dinner and sat down with a book on the physics of turbulence. Two hours later she made herself a cup of tea and switched to Pride and Prejudice. At one in the morning she was simply staring out through the window into the starlight when she heard fumbling at the door.

Rising, Rose unlocked the door and opened it to find the Doctor peering at his keys.

"Thanks!" He said with too much cheer, forcing his way inside. Once he had, in the light, Rose fully appreciated how terrible he looked. His jeans and t-shirt were soaked, he was pale, his breathing on the verge of hyperventilation and his eyes were too bright, too manic.

"Where've you been?" She asked, perturbed but not accusatory.

"Running!" He said, chipper, walking toward the bathroom.

"Running," Rose clarified as the bathroom door closed and locked. "Doctor!" She called through the door to him.

"Out in a tick!" He called back, ignoring her.

Rose drew her bottom lip into her mouth and stood with her hands on her hips before she nodded to herself. She went to the Doctor's bedroom and fished around in the infinite spaces of his suit pockets before her hand fell on cool metal.

The Doctor barely had time to throw his towel around his hips when she whipped the door open. "Rose!" He squeaked.

"What the hell's going on?" She asked, closing the door behind her. It tore her up to see him the way he was, chest still heaving, shaking worse than ever, his eyes haunted. She reached out to him physically and mentally and felt him cave under her gentlest touch.

Sliding to the ground against the shower glass, the Doctor gripped his hair, his knuckles going white as he started to rock. Rose knelt before him, shoved his towel down more for her modesty than his and placed her palm against his forehead. After a minute, he looked up from under her hand.

"M-martha said I made a rubbish human," he whispered.

"Martha can sod off, you're brilliant whatever you are," Rose defended him, running a thumb over his fringe. She wanted to make him smile but he didn't.

"I saw the Shed," Rose tried instead, making him drop his eyes from hers for her effort.

"So stupid," the Doctor hissed. "Not like it would've ever been ready in our lifetime I just thought," his breathing hitched and he sounded near tears when he continued, "I just _miss her_."

Rose nodded slowly, massaged his scalp, loosening his iron grip on his own hair. He had been trying to create an artificial Tardis seed, maddeningly delicate work. Karen's blundering had disrupted its nucleation, months of work for nothing. It wouldn't have been ready in time to take them through time, Rose knew, not with the slow process she saw in the Shed. But the seed might've been able to sing to him within a few years.

"It's so quiet, Rose, so quiet it's driving me mad," he was talking without looking at her, still rocking himself. "And one heart...and my bloody libido panicking, _panicking_! Procreate! Do it now! Because you're going to die, you're already dying!" His grip on his hair returned.

Smiling in understanding at him, Rose said, "all the hard bits about being human, just we never knew anything different. Time Lords don't have... _libidos_ do they?" She knew the didn't, not in the very primal human sense of the word. He had explained that they didn't years back when they wandered through his memories one night.

A wet, vaguely choked chuckle greeted her question and Rose continued touching his hair, continued prying at his mind, just a bit, attempting to take his pain as he had taken hers in the past. She hadn't thought about how hard it must've been for him adjusting to a human body. Her sex drive, her need for sleep and food, her single heart, even her dreams, they all made sense to her more or less. Thinking about how many times she had gone to him in the night to wake him from screaming, Rose knew none of it made sense to him, not empirically, not now that it was his reality.

And who did he have besides her? That thought knocked her down a peg. He had left behind Donna, practically family after what they had been through, his twin self, a universe where planet earth was full of people he knew and loved and who loved him in return. He had her and she hadn't thought much about him at all.

"Fuck me," Rose breathed in irritation at herself.

The Doctor looked up, frowning, at a loss. "What?"

"No," Rose shook her head, smiled and stood up, "not actually ' _fuck me_ ', oh never mind." She turned on the shower and adjusted the temperature for him.

When he looked up at her as she was leaving, his face gave the impression that she was ripping his heart out. "Human bodies, scientific fact, nothing much what's wrong with 'em that can't be cured by a long hot shower."

His pajamas were on the toilet seat when he got out and, as he crammed a towel into his ear to dry it, the Doctor had to admit he felt better, but only just.

"Get some food and come here," Rose called from her room when he opened the bathroom door.

The Doctor obeyed her, his mind and heart frazzled. The stew was warm in his stomach and in the bowl in his hands when he walked into Rose's room. He looked around, confused for a moment, before he saw the gap next to her wardrobe, a hand-slidey-door-openy panel beside it. He peered inside and saw Rose sitting on the floor beside a crate upon which several tubes, beakers and measurement devices were arrayed, all looking very impressive.

"What's this then," he asked after he had swallowed a mouthful of food. He walked into the small space and smiled down at the pictures that were taped above the crate and it's accouterment. One of Rose and his previous regeneration dancing around the Tardis, no doubt taken by Jack, and one of Rose and him grinning with New New york in the background. Her old cell sat on the crate, the source of the photos.

Rose patted the carpet next to her and he sat, still spooning down stew in a bid to replenish calories before his body burned the fat it didn't possess. She leaned her head on his shoulder and he leaned his head atop hers. They both looked at the pictures.

"How come I don't get a frame?" The Doctor nodded at the photos.

"You're too messy to put in a frame," Rose replied automatically.

"I'm sorry I haven't been there for ya," she said a while later as he was licking his bowl clean.

The Doctor sniffed. "What are you sorry for? I'm sorry I..." he made a noise of disgust, " _emoted_ all over you."

She laughed at him, a rare peal of laughter than reminded him of the way she used to laugh but rarely did now.

"I'm sorry I didn't show ya this sooner," she whispered after another pause and lifted aside an opaque glass bell jar to expose a glowing blue mass of crystals the size of a wine bottle, to which all the wires and measurement devices were attached. She felt him stop breathing for a minute, looked aside to see that his mouth hung open above his half cleaned bowl.

The Doctor lowered the bowl and his hand ran over his chest in a search for his specs. "We should be able to hear her at this size," he said very softly, mouth still open in awe when he'd finished.

"I've got her on a psychic resonation re-feed, speeds the growth," Rose explained. "Do you want to hear her?" Rose asked and his head spun so he could look at her, search her eyes as though what she offered was too much to hope to be true. Slowly Rose lifted a hand and flicked a few switches on the cobbled circuit board that sat next to the crystal. Pleasure surged through her from multiple sources, from the song of the Tardis crystal, from the sight of the Doctor's face as his eyes snapped shut and he looked transported, from his mind upon hearing a friend he thought he'd lost.

That was why Time Lords lacked a drive to procreate on any physical level. Their ecstasy came from connections of the mind and could exist entirely separate from their drive to pass on their genetics.

"I need to turn it off, Doctor," Rose said after several minutes had gone by. She watched as his eyes fluttered open and he licked his lips.

"Okay," he whispered.

Rather than pain at the lost connection, the Doctor was smiling at the Tardis crystal as Rose put it back into the re-feed loop.

He turned his smile on her until a thought seemed to occur to him and he frowned at her. "Resonation re-feed or no, this...this is way too big to have grown in the time you've been here." The spark in the Doctor's eye told Rose he already had a good idea of how the crystal had reached its size.

"15 years of my life and worth every second," She said without hesitation. When it looked like the Doctor was about to fly into a righteous Time Lord sermon she continued, "and don't sit there an' tell me it wasn't, 'cause look at ya," she nodded at him and he had stop and regard himself, then the infant Tardis, then Rose again.

Instead of a sermon, he leaned his head against hers and let their minds connect, an easy flow of feeling between them, easier than it had been since he had come the other universe. Which meant that Rose felt his niggling question before he actually voiced it.

"How do you do all this?" He cracked a suspicious eye at her.

"What d'ya mean?" Rose asked, too relaxed to be anything more than mildly irritated at his inability to zen a little.

"You...you speak languages native to races human beings haven't met yet. You can work technology far more advanced than anything surrounding the Milky Way for a thousand parsecs." The Doctor sat up as his list grew, "you know what a Malo Spatial anomaly is and presumably how to prevent it. You're growing a Tardis!" He finished, the Tardis clearly being the icing on the cake as he looked at her with wonder glowing in his manic eyes. Tardis technology was unique, it was of Gallifrey, it was, in a way, sacred to the Doctor. It was one unbelievable thing too many.

Rose just looked at him enigmatically and offered him her hand. They pulled each other up off of the floor and, after closing the Tardis cubby door, Rose led him to her bed. She drew the covers, pushed him onto it and sat down herself, threw the covers back over them and flicked out the light.

"Rose, what're you..." His voice, hesitant in the dark.

"Shut up," her voice, pure Rose Tyler. She spooned him from behind, wrapped an arm around his chest and rested her head against his for a minute, her lips by his ear. "Do ya feel it?"

The Doctor's eyes flitted about in the dark as he tried not to be overwhelmed by the sensation of Rose. In pajamas. All. Over. His. Body. "Feel what?" He asked, his voice a touch high.

She poked him with the hand about his chest. "On your back."

Having a destination to focus on greatly improved the Doctor's ability to concentrate on exactly what Rose was talking about. He smiled slowly, mildly. "They're out of sync," he said wryly.

"Always were hard to please, you," and he could feel the smile on her cheek where it rested against him, as her heart beat against his back, drumming out a rhythm a few seconds off that his old hearts had shared.

"Mmm, why do I get the sense you're trying to distract me?" He asked, his mind snapping back to the fact that a Tardis was growing feet from where they lay.

"Oooh, you're too clever for me."

"Rose," he said with a hint of a warning.

She blew into his ear and felt his whole body stiffen. "You've had a helluva day. Trust me, it can wait."

The Doctor swallowed and started breathing again after a minute. He was warm, surrounded by Rose and completely exhausted. He trusted her, he relaxed and started to drift off.

"Did ya just lick my pillow?" Rose asked sleepily from somewhere as his consciousness shut down.

"Mmmhmm," he mumbled and his hand gripped hers where it lay on his chest, "smelled like you."

"Ya always gonna lick things that smell like me?"

He didn't answer and Rose let him believe she thought he was asleep.


	5. They Came Not With Pitchforks

Now acutely aware of the Doctor's presence in her life and the distinct lack of other people's in his, Rose started recommending trips in the Rdis on the weekends. Without the Tardis and it's chronal suppressors, they were bound within a miliparsec of the earth if they didn't want to age to death in one trip. Never the less, they looked in on dwarf stars too small to be observed with any instrument the earth possessed, various dwarf planets which, the Doctor informed her, often served as stashes for stolen goods akin to small islands in the days of pirates, and the oldest star in the galaxy, the Methuselah star.

"Donna and I watched the formation of the earth from dust," he'd told her a little sadly as they sat with the Rdis doors opened one trip, their feet dangling out, in such a low orbit that the earth took up almost the entire view.

After agreeing to participate in some Torchwood training exercises, Rose also agreed to take the Doctor on or travel exclusively with him for minor trips and projects. That was how they wound up in Secondary Operations, based in Cardiff, on a Monday some five months after they had stopped the stars from going out and been dumped on Dårlig Ulv Stranden.

Unsurprisingly, everyone at Secondary seemed to give Bad Wolf the same kind of consideration they gave her at Primary, though some were a bit more stiff, more reserved around her. The Doctor chalked this up to the fact that Rose practically lived at Torchwood Tower and seemed to get around to Secondary once every few months. She didn't know all of the science workers names, nor even those of all the personnel, just those of the top brass and heads of departments.

One of those heads was walking them through a Helios unit with a prototype differential scanning target array, developed in the wake of the Inigutsk attack, when they ran into Jake Simmonds at the controls. His mouth opened to greet Rose when he saw her, remained open when he laid eyes on the Doctor.

"Jakey! Brilliant, how are you?" The Doctor enthused.

"What are you doing here?" The younger man asked, perplexed.

"Oh, parallel world mash up, Daleks, the usual," the Doctor grinned and rocked on his heals.

Jake was still glaring at the Doctor though. "You mean when we lost Tin Dog?"

Rose stepped in front of the Doctor before he could answer and eyed Jake warily. "Just after Operation Black Sky, yeah, ya have a problem with that, Preacher?"

While Jake hadn't thought much of Rose upon their first meeting, his subsequent impressions of her had served to make him justifiably cautious. He refrained from answering her and was asked by his superior to leave so they could continue. The Doctor didn't spare the incident a second thought but it sat in the back of Rose's mind, annoying her in her few spare moments.

-#-

"It's polyester," The Doctor said with disdain, making Rose snort.

"You fag!" She laughed at him from the couch as he held up the black Torchwood personnel uniform he would be required to wear on his first formal training exercise. He would be shipping off to Eastbourne, on the coast near Brighton, for a week. A week spent with 20 other Torchwood personnel training on ground tactical and Helios manoeuvres. In full kit. Full polyester kit.

"What? A man can't be fashionable?" He said, sitting down next to her in his blue suit, red plimsolls joining her bare feet on the table.

"A man can be a big bloody blue target," Rose said, flicking through channels on the telly, "don't complain or Wolfram'll take the piss out of ya every chance he gets."

"Oh, so much fun," the Doctor griped, earning a smack from Rose.

After a minute, Rose flicked off the telly and looked aside at the Doctor, a skinny boy in a rumpled blue suit too clever by half. She ran a hand through his hair and he grinned at her.

"M'worried about you," she murmured.

"Aaahh, what's to worry about?" He said and Rose frowned painfully at him. "I'm going to be fine! 900 years old, remember? It'll take more than a Torchwood Staff Sergeant to end me."

Rose was still looking at him with concern even as he tried to make light. "What if ya can't sleep? They'll work you like a dog and barely give you five hours rest."

The Doctor shrugged. "I'll read a book."

"What if you have a nightmare and it's one of the squad that has t'wake ya?" Thoughts closer to what was really bothering her, said much more quietly.

That made the Doctor smile warmly at her. Rose had been more thoughtful lately when it came to the human peculiarities he was still adjusting to. "I'll borrow a book from one of them," he replied and she looked away from him to lean her head on his shoulder. The Doctor was nice enough not to mention that he was only going on this training exercise at her request.

Having stopped with the pretext of falling asleep on the couch to sleep with each other, the Doctor nodded at Rose when she appeared in his doorway in her pajamas that night. They slept in her room, Rose wrapped in his arms because the Doctor thought she might need to be held, just for that night.

-#-

"Why the flying fuck are you not in kit, soldier?"

"'Cause I am not a soldier," the Doctor stated, shaking his head at Trent Wolfram, a barrel chested ginger who had two inches on him and enough moustache to sweep a chimney.

"Ooh, wise. I like wise. I like breaking wise over my bloody knee. Drop and give me forty!"

The Doctor snorted a laugh in Wolfram's face before pointing to his arms. " _Drop and give you forty_? Does it look like I could give you tuppence, let alone forty?"

Wolfram stepped swiftly behind the Doctor and rammed a leg into the back of other man's knee, toppling him over. "There we go, dropped. Give me forty and then catch up on the run, and I mean _catch up_."

Picking himself up into a plank, his chin burning, the Doctor grunted as he began doing pushups, silently pleased that there would at least be some running.

"There we have our first important lesson, one you have learned before, one you should be reminded of again and again" Wolfram boomed out, emphasising the end of every second or third word. "The chain of command exists to keep you safe..." his voice faded away as he led the 20 other personnel off on a jog. The Doctor wondered if Rose could do forty pushups and concluded in short order that she likely could. While he was struggling on his 15th, the Doctor thought of how bloody fit Rose was now and picked up his pace a little, grinning to himself. He didn't just catch up to the squad, he lapped them twice and earned himself two more rounds of the compound for his effort.

-#-

"It's important," Rose said through gritted teeth, shaking her head as she stormed down the hall of Boring three toward her office, Pete keeping pace.

"I'm not not saying it isn't, am I? I'm saying, it's a UN resolution, let UNIT be the ones to handle this." He gestured as he spoke, his hands seeming to indicate that UNIT and the UN were both foreign elements Torchwood would do well to avoid.

Rose bit back a sigh. "Torchwood has somethin' to say on this resolution, delegates from the Shadow Directive'll be there, I want us to speak. If this resolution is shot down we'll have no extradition treaty with about 20,000 planets and I'm not havin' it." She stopped outside her door and faced Pete and they glared at one another before they were interrupted by Rose's door opening.

"Bad Wolf," Wolfram's deep voice snapped Rose and Pete's attention to the Staff Sergeant, "I was looking to have a moment with you."

Rose frowned at him, in part because she had been frowning at Pete, but her mind was giving her other reasons to do so. "In here," she nodded to her office, attempting to keep Pete out but failing as Torchwood's director followed promptly on her heels.

Stopping just inside, Rose fixed Wolfram with a look the Staff Sergeant, who had almost 20 years on her, found difficult not to flinch under. He stood ramrod straight, hands clasped behind his back.

"I regret to inform you, Bad Wolf, that we suffered three losses in the exercises at Eastbourne this week."

"Who?" Rose asked, as still as the Staff Sergeant.

"Private Alicia Worrel, Lance Corporal Kent Schmidt and...your boy Smith from Primary Ops Science." He swallowed.

"How?"

"Their Helios disintegrated over the water. We're not certain if the new target array was in any way involved but we can't rule it out."

"Why the hell were those Helios out? We only just had the new targeting systems installed!" Pete angrily interjected from his place by the door.

"Sorry, Sir. Secondary thought the training exercise would be a good time to test them." Wolfram answered Pete before Rose drew his attention again.

"Bodies?"

Wolfram shook his head, "no."

"Black box from the Helios?" Pete again.

Another shake of the head from Wolfram, "No, sir."

"Damn," Pete cursed, running a hand over his head.

"Have ya informed their families?" Rose asked, the slightest drop in volume. She hadn't known the personnel that were lost which told her they were from Secondary, ranked too low for her to have had cause to meet them.

"Just about to. I...couldn't find any family on record for Smith."

Something twisted in Rose's stomach. "No, you wouldn't have. Contact Kent and Worrel's next of kin."

"And Smith?" Wolfram asked.

Rose looked away, strode behind her desk and pulled a few files out of a drawer. "I'll take care of him. Thank you, Wolfram, you're dismissed."

Wolfram had known Bad Wolf long enough to know he shouldn't salute her. Still, he hesitated. "I just want to say once more that I'm sorry."

Rose acknowledged this with a nod. "And me."

Before Wolfram had quite got past Pete, Rose called out. "Trent? See a counsellor before you leave. Pam is good, she should still be in. Fifth floor."

Clearing his throat, Wolfram stepped briefly back into the room. "This isn't the first time I've lost personnel, Bad Wolf."

Rose cocked a brow at him. "So I shouldn't have to tell ya t'go see a counsellor."

"Point taken," Wolfram said, smiled at his shoes and left.

Rose stared at the memo from the UN on her desk, wanting Pete to say his piece and leave. When he hesitated to speak, Rose supplied, "I'll go to New York tonight. I can speak for Torchwood on this."

"Okay," Pete agreed. After another moment, he reached for the door. "I'm sorry," he said and left.

Rose looked up at her closed door and acknowledged she must have been in shock. She didn't feel ripped apart, didn't ache, didn't feel much of anything. Stuffing some files in her briefcase, Rose slung it over her shoulder and left her office. It would sink in on Friday, she suspected, when the Doctor was to have returned from Eastbourne.

-#-

Returning to Torchwood that night with a change of formal clothes, Rose went to Hanger two and found the canvas covered Rdis. Laying her hand on the door, she slipped her key into the lock and let herself in. She hadn't gone into the Doctor's room when she went home to fetch some things for her trip. Looking around the dome and its coral-like supports, she expected something, some feeling to surface.

Rose inhaled. Her chest felt a little tight, she supposed.

The Rdis hummed on and she set her destination, flicking levers and turning dials. She was in New York in five minutes, parked aside the row of flags of member countries that bordered the UN headquarters. She inhaled the city and appreciated its noise, sounding like London if you didn't listen too closely.

She had been to UN headquarters previously, knew the area around it reasonably well. It took a little while to jump through the hoops and get herself slated to speak the next day. After that, the sun starting to hang low, Rose called a cab and instructed the driver to take her some place she could get a drink and have a smoke in relative peace.

She wound up in the Upper East Side, working on a whiskey and her second fag when he approached.

"That seat free?" He asked, his smile showing straight teeth and a single dimple. Rose assessed him in a second, determined he was likely harmless, horny and sober enough.

"Could cost ya your life," she said, tapping the ashes off the end of her fag.

He raised his brows, pleased. "You're British."

Huffing out a breath, Rose looked away from him and took a drag to indicate his deductive prowess wasn't winning him any points.

"Rough day at the office," the stranger tried again, not taking the seat he was after yet, which Rose appreciated at least. There was still a chance to shake him.

"Got my best friend killed. Again." Rose frowned at herself, starting to hate that she wasn't feeling anything. She was talking of the man that she had literally walked through hell for, of his death, and it did nothing to her.

"Again?" The stranger prodded but he received no answer. "You want to talk about it?"

Rose closed her eyes and bit back an angry smile at how stupid people could be. She looked back up at him, "I'm sittin' alone drinkin' whiskey straight and threatenin' strangers, yeah? What makes ya think I want to talk about it?"

It was the earnestness in his face at what he said next that made Rose no longer want to hurt him. "That you're alone and your best friend just died."

Looking at him for a moment, Rose eventually nodded to the seat across from her.

The stranger's name was Henry, he worked at the UN, of course. Rose let him believe she worked at UNIT and they talked about the resolution that would be debated the next day. His opinion on it centred around his belief that aliens deserved the same rights and protections afforded any person and Rose found herself liking him, just a little. He had another drink and Rose drank water, looked him up on her comm device under the table and found he hadn't lied about anything he'd told her. They didn't talk about the Doctor.

"It's in really poor taste to hit on someone who's just lost a friend, isn't it?" Henry asked, dark eyes darting back and forth between Rose's.

"Yeah," she said after a second and stubbed out her fourth cigarette.

His hotel was close and they walked, exchanged a few pertinent details like the fact that he traveled a lot and expected this wouldn't be leading to anything else. Rose told him she was going back to London the next night and that, if they were going to be tacky, she expected him to be good with his hands so they could make the most of it.

From her comm files, Rose knew Henry had six years on her. Old enough to know how to be rough but controlled, unlike Mickey had been at times in his haste and need. Old enough to listen to what she asked of him and a good enough lover to provide.

Rose left him for the shower as soon as he'd come; she was still breathing heavily when the hot water hit her and she ducked her head under it. Her body ached, satisfied, reminding her it had been exceptionally long since she'd last given adequate attention to certain parts of it.

She blew at the water cascading across her lips and leaned against the cold tiles, stared at the shower's glass door as it fogged. Absent-mindedly she began working out how she might use the Tardis crystal to reach her home universe and its Doctor. Then she squeezed her eyes shut and dug her nails into her palms, angry at herself for being so callous. All those thoughts, however, led her to thinking of his face, of him griping about polyester and how the tip of his nose flattened when he grinned broadly.

Still, Rose felt nothing. Not numb, not like something was waiting in the wings to knock her off balance. Just nothing.

She rinsed then shut off the water and questioned why a lack of feeling should surprise her. It had only been months since she'd found him, simultaneously losing and regaining him once she had. She might've been mourning the Doctor while falling for him at the same time, falling for his twin that was so him she had never really seen the difference. What was she supposed to feel? Slipping her hoop earings in, Rose shook her head at herself in the hazy mirror as these thoughts occurred to her.

"You're leaving," Henry said from the bed as she dressed.

"You're actually awake," Rose said with a hint of surprise, making Henry chuckle.

She heard him slip from the covers and he was behind her as she stood from putting her boots on. He slipped his hands into her hair and tried to look into her eyes in the faint light from the window, as though he wanted to say something. "You're amazing," he managed finally, giving her a small smile.

Rose was glad he didn't bring up her friend's death or ask her to stay or patronise her in some other way. She kissed him in thanks and left.

She had strung a hammock up beside the console on their recent trip to the dwarf planet Serdai. It was in this that she dozed the night away, waking often when she thought she heard him humming or his footfalls on the grating.

-#-

After her return to London, Rose called Peter and Hasrat up to her office to tell them their friend had died before she let the news out over the comm. The two science workers cried in front of Rose. Her heart beat steadily on as they did.

Rose stood and directed them to the Torchwood counselors she had waiting at the end of the hall but Hasrat stayed behind a minute.

"I know he didn't have any family, I mean," she smiled through the tears in her eyes, "not that he ever mentioned. But he always talked about his friend, Rose. Never got her last name. I'd like to try and find her...to let her know."

Rose nodded at her after a moment. "Let me do that," she said and watched Hasrat join Peter down the hall. Hasrat had been one of Rose's hires but the Bio worker had no idea what her boss's real name was. Closing the door, Rose thought: _John Smith_.

-#-

Friday came and the Doctor did not.

Rose returned home that night and finally opened the door to his room, leaned on the door jamb and looked about. The rest of the flat was immaculate. His room was chaos by design, save for the odd dried and blackened banana peel, she could see it in ways she couldn't have when she first travelled with him. He liked to arrange things alphabetically, had done so in the Tardis, had done so with the piles in his room.

Grinning, Rose stepped to the pile she deduced as "R" and pulled on the corner of one of her shirts until it came free. The Doctor was forever winding up with small items of her clothing from the dryer. Rose suspected half of her socks were hiding in that room. Holding the shirt to her chest, Rose turned in place, surveying his human habitat.

She closed the door and left it. There was no rush, time would wait in there for a Time Lord.

-#-

It took two weeks for a profound melancholy to start working its way through Rose. She pushed it down and spent more time at work. The handfull of living samples the Doctor had stashed in the Shed she returned to Bio. Secondary sent over a prototype Helios unit of the kind that had malfunctioned and ended the Doctor's life and it was on this that Rose spent any spare moment working. If she could do nothing else, she wanted to prevent the loss of any more of her personnel.

More often than not she fell asleep in the cubby at her flat that housed the Tardis crystal, leaving the re-feed loop off so she could hear the song that had bound her to the Doctor.

The Helios proved increasingly frustrating as she failed to find a systemic issue that would have caused the craft to go down. It enraged her to think that a fluke, something as mundane as a poor soldering job or the like, had been the cause of the accident.

Rose was furiously digging in the wiring for the main throttle hook up in the Helios in Hanger one when she heard footsteps approaching. She bit back a sigh and closed her eyes a second, calming herself down. Personnel and Science workers never saw her upset as a rule.

"Bad Wolf?" Hasrat stood at the foot of the small craft, looking up as Rose looked over the edge of it.

"What d'ya need?" Rose asked.

"Can I show you something?" Hasrat asked tentatively and Rose reminded herself to soften up a little. The Science workers found her intimidating, the Doctor had told her, a grin on his face to indicate he thought this was both hilarious and proper.

Wiping her hands on a rag, Rose disentangled herself from the mess of wires in her lap and jumped down next to Hasrat. Without thinking she took the note screen from Hasrat's hands and began looking at it. Hasrat took a step back and swallowed timidly.

"This is a biometric signal for the door locks," she said, frowning, and looked up at Hasrat who swallowed again.

"Y-yes, it is, a very specific biometric signal, a-according to the records. It's John's," she finished, wringing her hands.

Rose frowned and swiped at the note screen to look at the data on the lower half of the page. It twinged, seeing the Doctor's stupidly grinning face, next to a name and birthdate that belonged to someone else. Rose scanned the page again before looking up at Hasrat.

"I've been working on a project, not on paid time of course," Hasrat hastened to add under Rose's intense scrutiny," based on the work they did with victim identification after 9/11. I wanted...I wanted Torchwood's systems to flag any recovered materials, from accidents...or, or missions, that had any non-dermal DNA trace of one of our employees, incase we were able to find some remains. For their families." She rushed through her explanation but smiled weakly when Rose nodded at her in encouragement.

"I was using the biometric signals to test the program...and I got this hit. The thing is, though," and here Hasrat shook her head, ran a hand through her long black hair, "the hit didn't come from the recovered materials section. It couldn't have, could it? You said they didn't find John's body. It was randomly floating in Torchwood's database."

The look Rose gave Hasrat stalled any more speech on her part. Slowly, Rose dropped her eyes to the note screen and began moving back in the code of the program, along the stream of the hit on John Smith. She knew there was no such thing as 'randomly floating' information in any of Torchwood's archives. Torchwood thrived on order. But there it was, John Smith's DNA profile, sitting in a folder unhelpfully labelled 'K' deep in the bowels of the Secondary Ops mainframe.

Rose ran a finger along the side of the note screen, then looked up at Hasrat. "Can I keep this?"

Hasrat stammered at even being asked. "Of-of course, Bad Wolf. I didn't want to bother you, really, I-"

"No bother," Rose cut her off, "M'glad you brought this to me." Her look and words were dismissive enough and Hasrat shakily nodded once before turning on her heel and walking speedily away.

"Oh, and Hasrat?" Rose called and the Bio worker turned to her. "Clock your time for this project. I think it's brilliant." Nodding jerkily, Hasrat smiled, pleased with herself and left.

Rose tucked the note screen into the dusty green coveralls she wore and climbed back on to the Helios. Her mind was elsewhere as her fingers traced the wire connections, though. She had become a creature that lived on hope and her chest burned with the want of it in that moment. But her rational mind couldn't put the pieces together in a way that allowed her some measure of hope.

She had barely gotten back to focusing on the work in front of her properly when she heard footsteps approaching again. Science worker, she knew, the personnel boots clomped in a certain way, and it wasn't Hasrat again, the footfalls were less dainty, a man then.

"Bad Wolf?"

Rose leaned over the Helios again, cocked a brow at Peter. "Did I miss a memo? D'the sciences miss me in the Shed?"

Peter opened and closed his mouth, unsure how to respond, especially when he thought he saw Bad Wolf smirk before she ducked back over the craft.  
Clearing his throat, Peter stuffed his hands in his trousers. "Um, sorry to bother you, there's just something odd I've come across and, seeing as you're working on the Helios and all, I thought you might be interested."

Rose slowly leaned her face back over to peer at him. Two people independently coming to her with concerns connected to the Helios and the accident. Like an excitable dog, hope howled in her chest.

"Out with it then," Rose said, hopping down once more.

"Okay, um, it's just, I was looking at the flight data from the Helios that John..." He paused and looked at the floor a moment. "That John was on," he continued, meeting Rose's eyes again. "and the data recorder, it didn't...it didn't just cease recording like you would expect if it was instantly unable to transmit anymore."

"Like if it'd disintegrated in an explosion," Rose offered.

"Right, yes, like that. No, it had a sign off code in the transmission...like it had been shut down."

Rose searched the young man's eyes and saw in them the hope she wanted desperately to have, even though this was nothing on it's own, could've meant anything.

Peter took the probing look as a sign that he had perhaps overstepped his bounds and backed away. "Anyway, sorry to bother," and he was turning to go before Rose called out to him.

"Peter? Good work," she said, and watched him rub the hair on his head, one hand in his pocket as he shyly walked from her presence.

Rose clenched her jaw and looked at the small craft beside her, placed a hand on it and tapped her fingers against it. And her mind raced.

She ran up the stairs to her office, avoiding meeting anyone until she was on Boring three and a few higher ups raised brows at her in her coveralls. She ignored them, got into her office and started in on her computer.

The Helios was small, necessarily manned by only three personnel, easily hidden. Rose started scanning for all the things she would have looked for had it not been Wolfram that reported the accident to her and given her the details. Transports, trasnmat beams, energy signals, the signs that something extraterrestrial had had something to do with it. Rose exhaled deeply as she moved her inquiry internally. Both Hasrat's and Peter's findings pointed to Torchwood, Rose hated to admit. She had wanted it to be aliens, to not to have to suspect her own people.

Beginning in the Secondary Ops mainframe, Rose began looking for the smallest discrepancies, changes that had been made in the last two weeks. Half a floor at secondary had been shut down due to concerns with the wiring. Four personnel had been taken off regular rotations, one for personal reasons, another for an injury, the other two placed on special projects. None of this alone or taken together was cause for concern really.

Rose bit her lip, seeing as she was alone, sat back and tried to think objectively. Was it desperation that drove her search for problems, that had driven Hasrat and Peter? She got up and paced her office, considering then discarding a hundred unworkable ideas.

If Rose's theory were correct, she would need to land on Secondary with the brunt of Primary Ops behind her. Every one who worked at Secondary would be placed under suspicion and if she was wrong...no one would ever trust the Bad Wolf again...no one at Torchwood would trust each other.

Rose sat on her desk and closed her eyes. Her hand drifted to the Tardis key round her neck, gripped it until her knuckles went white.

The thought that people she worked with had done something to the Doctor made bile rise in her throat. _She_ would never be able to trust anyone again if she didn't pursue this, she knew, and there was no way she could continue at Torchwood if that were the case.

Rose nodded to herself, certainty steeling over her. She was out the door and had to come back when one last thought struck her. She looked up Jake Simmonds. Records indicated he had missed eight shifts in the last two weeks but hadn't been reprimanded due to an override put in by his CO, Quartermaster Danielle Kosch.

Knowing she would need Pete eventually but unable to be certain he wasn't involved, Rose put in a discrete comm call to thirty personnel she hoped she could trust. She met them in Hanger one and outlined her plan, though not her suspicions, and loved them for their unquestioning devotion to her.

When Bad Wolf indicated that they should all pile into a blue phone box that might've held five of them, they look aside to one another, then around the hanger for cameras. Rose entered first and only then did they follow. She stole glances at their faces as they each came in and hid her smile in her eyes. "Close the doors, Adam," she called to the last man in and they were off.

Ally had sauntered over, moving closer in order to not make her comments sound like she was questioning Bad Wolf. "This bloke we're after, what's so special about him if I may ask?"

The other woman grinned at the spark in Rose's eye. "You wanted to shag the person that saved our asses from the Inigustk?"

"Aaah," Ally nodded, "so I best get him out then."

The Rdis shuttered. "We're landing!" Rose shouted, "at my signal...now!" She hit her comm and sent a preprepared message to Pete before rushing out with her troops, hoping with all that she was that it wouldn't be a floor cordoned off with plastic and electricians tearing holes in the wall.  
Sometimes Time and Space, Rose's gods for want of a better name, could be kind. Time would let her not be too late, Space would land the Tardis in the corner of the room, next to the door, and give them a tactical advantage.

Rose and her hand picked personnel mowed the seven people in the room down before any of them could reach a weapon or raise an alarm. Their blasters had been set on silent, their orders to shoot to stun anyone standing. How lucky were they, then, that the Doctor was strapped to a gurney in the far corner.  
"Where have you been?" The Doctor called weakly when he lifted his head and saw Rose, still with a laser rifle leveled. "I ordered my pizza an hour ago," he groused, "you lot better not be expecting a tip!" Then he fell back against the gurney.

The personnel Rose had brought, only momentarily distracted by this, began fanning out to adjoining floors under the direction of Trent Wolfram. Rose ran to the Doctor and found him unconscious. Her eyes raced along the tubing that stuck out from the paper smock that covered him to the machine affixed to it. It looked like a dialysis machine, something filtering his blood and Rose sighed angrily at her lack of foresight.

"Sandra?" Rose barked into her comm, "attach yourself to the next departing personnel carrier."

"Sorry?" Came Sandra's bemused reply before an alarm blared on her side of the intercom. Rose hoped the noise indicated that Pete was doing as she asked, not readying Primary Operations to come in and take her down. She buried a hand in the Doctor's hair and brought her face to meet his, their foreheads touching. She would be ready if they were coming for him.

To Rose's relief, Pete entered the room alone some 15 minutes later, with Wolfram as his only escort.

"He's alive," Pete said and Rose read genuine surprise in his features.

"Not just him, Sir. That's Worrel and Schmidt there," Wolfram intoned, nodding to two of the personnel they had taken down. "They were supposed to have gone down with Smith in the Helios."

Pete looked livid as he brought his comm to his lips. "Ambrose! Get me the scheduling recs for Secondary Ops training rotations, specifically for Eastbourne in the last two weeks."

He glared at Rose though he wasn't angry with her, not really.

"I have a pretty good idea where to start with who's involved," she said to him as Sandra entered and Rose beckoned to her. She forced herself to step aside and relay to Pete her suspicions as Sandra looked the Doctor over.

Sandra called for medical support from the other floors and set immediately to work. "I need to get him to Primary," she said over her should to Rose a minute later.

Rose and Pete looked at one another, knew each others thoughts only too well. "On my word as Tony's father, I had nothing to do with this. Let me handle this mess," Pete said quietly so they weren't overhead.

Rose wished very much that the Pete in front of her hadn't sounded so much like the man the Doctor had taken her to meet in her past, her real father. No amount of work on her part had made Rose able to process and move on from the violence Pete had inflicted on her mother. But she knew in her heart of hearts that Pete hadn't been involved in the Doctor's kidnapping. If nothing else, Pete was smart enough to recognize the Doctor's worth alive and healthy and Rose knew that.

Rose gave Pete a stiff nod and turned back to Sandra, her choice made. "Sandra, get him into that box," she ordered, indicating the Rdis in the corner.  
"Bad Wolf, we need to get him on a trans-" Sandra began but was cut off.

"That's an order Doctor Ellis!" And once more Rose led the way into the blue box. The team of medics loaded the Doctor and the machine attached to him into the Rdis and Rose shut the door behind them. She ran to the console and sent them back to Torchwood.

"When we're done saving this man's life, someone needs to tell me how the hell that thing is bigger on the inside," one of the medics said as they wheeled the Doctor into the infirmary.

"Always bigger on the inside, never 'hey! It can park inside super duper high security closets!' or 'wow! I just broke the sound barrier and didn't even feel it!" The Doctor had started to ramble.

Rose stroked his head, frowning and smiling at him at the same time as they settled him into an operating bay.

"Rose, d'you see? They're scrubbing my blood, s'all squeaky clean!"

"Bad Wolf, shut him up. He's too weak to be talking," Sandra said as she cut away his meager coverings.

"All evidence to...the bloody..." the Doctor tried, his voice faltering.

When he didn't finish because he couldn't Rose bent down and smiled at him, had to tear her eyes from the wound the tubes fed into in his stomach. "Y'hear that? Sandra thinks I can shut ya up. First thing ya knew 'fore ya knew anything else, Yeah? Ya knew ya had a gob. How could I ever shut ya up?" She continued to stroke his hair and the Doctor remained silent, eyes shut and breathing irregular.

"Rose...I feel...terrible," the Doctor said softly, his face contorting. Slipping her hand to his temple, Rose concentrated until a nauseating feeling crept into her, tinged with pain, and she took it on as much as she could.

"He's septic," Sandra said before she left to scrub up.

Swallowing her worry down deep, Rose concentrated on letting him know she was there through their connection as she felt him slip into unconsciousness again. She kept a hand on his temple to do so even as the anaesthesiologist moved in and gassed him.

The medical team worked on him for three hours, not as bad as it could have been really. Cheek pressed to the Doctor's temple, her hands on his shoulders, Rose watched them cut into her friend, expose his innards red and wet to the air.

 _S'kinda neat_ , the Doctor thought, _I've never seen my own guts before_.

Rose almost smirked. _Rest, you. Stop lookin._ ' She replied in her mind.

 _Could say the same to you_ , the Doctor retorted and felt Rose's psyche shrug.

After a long pause in which she hugged him a little closer, Rose asked, _Doctor, are ya dyin'?_

She sensed him documenting the details of his injured form through her eyes. _I dunno. I've never felt so...fragile before, being human that is. Looking at myself, seeing what I've seen of humans...I'd say I look in pretty bad shape._

Rose didn't respond for a while and eventually she sensed the Doctor mentally humming 'Hammer to Fall' by Queen. She pressed a kiss to his temple.

Sternly, Sandra told Rose to go and get some rest as she stripped off her latex gloves. Cocking a brow at her as if demanding to know how exactly she was going to enforce that demand, Rose settled in by the Doctor's side, her left hand in his, her right in her lap in case someone came through the door and she needed her blaster. The personnel she trusted the most were tied up at Secondary and Rose stood as the Doctor's only protection.

Left alone, the night dragged on and Rose tried focusing on the chatter from her comm that vaguely spelled out what was going on at Secondary. It was a mess. She had to work on putting up enough of a barrier between her and the Doctor that she didn't slip into his dreams but that he could still feel her. Normally he would've done that, been the one to keep their thoughts separate enough, but he was weak.

Two hours into Rose's vigil the front desk called her on her comm to inform her that Jackie was there and if they were cleared to escort her. In the background, Rose could hear her mother arguing about permission, ridiculous, her daughter and how dare they. She smiled and told them to let her up.

Rose nodded at the officer that brought her mother to dismiss them as Jackie approached the Doctor slowly, a hand flying to her mouth when she got close enough to see him properly. "Oh, sweetheart," she moaned before coming to Rose and enveloping her in a one armed hug, her other hand dropping to Rose's and the Doctor's.

Rather than pester her daughter to get sleep as Sandra had done, Jackie pulled up a chair and sat next to the Doctor and Rose. She brought her coffee as the hours wore on and even consented to taking Rose's blaster for the minute it took her daughter to use the washroom.

Four in the morning, Jackie asleep on her shoulder, Rose's comm chattered at her.

" **Bad Wolf? Don't take my head off, I'm comin' in,** " Pete's voice came before he entered the infirmary. He knelt down next to her and laid out what was going on at Secondary, his hand absentmindedly slipping into his wife's.

"God, I want it to be that contained," Rose said, shaking her head when Pete had finished.

"I know," he agreed. "I think you're right to have a guard on him at all times for the next little while though. We're not gonna be able to keep the fact that he's less than human from becoming common knowledge now."

Eyes slipping from the Doctor's pale face, Rose glared at Pete. " _Less than human_. It's bullshit like that what made it so easy for Jake to convince people to do what they did. An' not just any people, _our_ people."

Pete looked back at her just as hard but didn't argue. "We got changes to make," he conceded after a minute.

"I'll get Wolfram and your team back from Secondary soon as I can and they can spell you out," Pete said after another minute in which they watched the shallow rise and fall of the Doctor's chest.

The monitors beeped and clicked.

"Get me some more troops but they'll be additional. I'm not leaving him," Rose said firmly.

Pete looked at the ground then get to his feet and left, bringing his comm to his lips.

"Was it Hasrat?" The Doctor asked weakly a few hours later, snapping Rose's attention to him from the door.

"What?" She asked.

"It was Hasrat, wasn't it? She got my message." He could barely keep his eyes open but his fingers twined more firmly with Rose's. He was trying to smile.

Shifting her mother, Rose leaned so her face was close to the Doctor's and smiled softly at him. "What was with 'K'?"

The Doctor's silly grin warmed Rose's heart. "Potassium...I love bananas," he slurred as his eyes fluttered shut and he was gone again.

Rose couldn't help hoping he would waken again even though she knew he needed the rest. When he didn't, she pressed her lips to his forehead, reminded herself he deserved privacy and resisted the urge to slip into his dreams.

At six am Wolfram marched into the infirmary and looked down at the man they had liberated. "Is doctor Ellis hopeful for his recovery?" He asked Rose as Jackie was still slumped in her chair.

Rose drew a deep breath. "No...but I am."

The man upon whom Rose had modelled her emotional response at work, Wolfram's moustache merely twitched at her comment. "He was a pain in my ass. Questioned everything. Far too clever."

"You like the pains in your ass so long as they are clever," Rose replied, "that's what ya liked about me."

Wolfram's face betrayed nothing as to whether or not he thought there was truth in this statement.

"Pain in your ass, _my ass_ , my pizza was cold, fat lot of...good..." The Doctor mumbled in a fit of half wakefulness before he became silent again.

"I'll be outside the door, Bad Wolf, with two personnel on rotation from those you selected for the operation at Secondary at any given time." They shared a look in which Rose read Wolfram's guilt for the part he had inadvertently played in letting this happen.

Nodding at him, Rose said, "thank you Trent."  
It was Peter who entered next, three hours later when Torchwood's Primary science divisions had been at work for an hour stewing in gossip about the dust up at Secondary. He stopped several feet from the bed the Doctor occupied and his face glowed. Rose felt for him, this man who was clearly smitten with the Doctor, how could she not? Peter's excitement only heightened hers.

"Come on, Peter, he'd want to see you if he was awake," Rose encouraged and Peter drew closer. It was then that Rose noticed both that he held a bunch of bananas in his hand and that Hasrat was at the door, looking in but not approaching.

Peter had only eyes for the Doctor, drank the sight of the other man in like he had crossed a desert just to do so. "Hello, John," he said so quietly it came out as a whisper. A grin split his face and his eyes watered when his friend replied.

"Hallo Blue Turtle. Fancy seeing you here, you can't _stand_ the sight of blood," the Doctor said weakly, cracking an eye in Peter's direction.

"They've patched you up pretty good," Peter pointed out to him, his eyes wandering the Doctor's body. "I brought you a present," he held up the fruit in his hand.

A hearty laugh escaped the Doctor's lips, making him cough. "Oh, Peter! Good man...Good man," he finished quietly.

"Is that Hasrat?" The Doctor asked as Peter set the bananas on the bedside table. In his coughing fit he thought he had glimpsed her.

Rose looked to the door and Peter looked over his shoulder as Hasrat disappeared from the doorway. Awkwardly, Peter glanced back at John but didn't meet his eyes. "Um...she's, well..."

"What is it?" Rose demanded, her tone and voice by far the strongest things in the room next to Peter and the sickly Doctor.

Peter squirmed. "Well...there's a rumour...there's a rumour that the reason you were kidnapped was because...people are saying you're not human, John."

The dancing glee in the Doctor's lidded eyes slipped from them quickly and Peter glimpsed for for the first time how impossibly old his friend's eyes could be.

"Who's 'people'?" Rose asked, leaning forward in her chair and making Peter swallow.

"I...I dunno, people, everyone, everyone's saying it."

Silence settled between the three of them for a second as Rose processed this and Peter looked uncomfortable.

"You came," the Doctor quietly pointed out, looking at Peter.

The young man shrugged and Rose caught the blush creeping out from under his collar. "I always thought there were humans who didn't possess the best of humanity...there's no reason there can't be aliens that do."

The Doctor grinned at him then and Peter turned positively red. "Oh, Peter, you are brilliant!" The Doctor enthused.

"And you," Peter said quietly.

Eyes flicking back and forth between them, Rose watched Peter watch the Doctor's breathing slow again before he tore eyes away, nodded at her and left the infirmary.

"Are ya asleep?" Rose asked him a minute later.

"Mmmm...hard not to be...feel weak," the Doctor responded, flopping his head to the side to face Rose, though his eyes remained shut.

"D'ya remember...on Krop Torr. I was in the rocket when ya contacted it?" She asked, looking briefly to her side to make sure her mother was still sleeping.

The Doctor drew and exhaled a deep breath, took so long to respond that Rose feared he'd fallen asleep again. "Mmm...fair trade, that. Ida Scott for you. She...she was brilliant."

Her hand hadn't left his the entire time, except for her bathroom break, but Rose slipped her other into his messy hair. "They drugged me to get me into that rocket. I didn't want t'go...I couldn't leave ya, not if you were dead or alive."

A frown creased the Doctor's features. "Lucky for us...wouldn't have managed to go back for you if they hadn't."

"I suppose," Rose said, tracing his face with her eyes as she frowned back at him.

"Why'd you think of that?" The Doctor asked after minute, straining his head just a little to touch more of her hand.

Rose drew her bottom lip into her mouth. "So you'd know...that I..." She was choking on her words, her chest constricted. "It was Hasrat and Peter that didn't stop lookin' for ya, that wouldn't accept your death. I did. I let ya be and I wanted ya to know...there I was a time I wouldn't a done that."

She tried but failed to hold back her guilt from the Doctor's mind. In return, as he cracked an eye to look at her, Rose saw in his mind memories of his old self sending the Tardis off with her crying out inside on Satellite Five, memories of a beach and them and his pain at recognizing how he had torn her apart. "A man that's left you as often as I have...you've earned the right to leave behind just once."

The Rose that would have stayed on Krop Torr would have cried then. She didn't.

-#-

"He's impressive," was all Sandra could say three days later when the Doctor was alive, awake and demanding bananas.

It was difficult for the infirmary staff to decide which was more annoying. There was the skinny git who refused to shut up, whether he was singing or taking his gob out for a walk. Then there was Bad Wolf, who was conducting business as usual from a laptop at the Doctor's bedside, necessitating a parade of personnel and suits through the infirmary. And there was a lot of that business owing to the need to completely overhaul the command structure at Secondary Ops.

The day the Doctor started hobbling around for the first time, Rose at his side to prevent him from falling over, the medics popped champagne at shift end. They applauded Rose and the Doctor when Sandra finally cleared him to go home and they left, the Doctor marveling at being in street clothes for the first time in two weeks.

-#-

"...I wonder if we'll get snow this year, I love snow, ooh! And ice skating, ice skating is brilliant, love a good skate, went skating on the canals in Amsterdam in 1947..." The Doctor hadn't stopped babbling the entire drive to his and Rose's flat.

"Bad Wolf, request permission to ask a question of a personal nature," Wolfram asked stiffly from the passenger seat.

"Granted," Rose said indifferently, frowning in the sun that came through the tinted backseat windows of the Torchwood Jeep.

"You live with this man...full time?" Came Wolfram's question, his tone incredulous.

Rose looked aside at the Doctor who had shut up long enough to hear Wolfram's question and was now grinning at her. She smirked back at him ever so slightly. They were going home.

"Yeah, I do," Rose said with more warmth in her voice than she'd meant to express in the presence of Torchwood personnel.

"How exactly do you manage that?" Wolfram dared another personal question as the Doctor began drumming on his thighs and humming 'smooth criminal.'

Shaking her head, Rose considered this for a moment. "I make sure he gets lots of exercise."

"Oooh! That was dirty! Did'ya mean for that to be dirty?" The Doctor asked of Rose, his eyes and grin wide. Rose smacked him.

"Smith! You are speaking to your commanding officer-"

"She's _your_ commanding officer, not mine," the Doctor interrupted, "unless you want to give me commands when you, you know," the Doctor waggled his brows at Rose, " _exercise_ me."

"Oh god," Rose said through clenched teeth, bringing her hand to the Doctor's mouth in an effort to shut him up. "I forgot how annoying you can be when you're hyper."

Rose watched him move around their flat, a hand held to the wound on his stomach out of habit. Following him into his room, she watched as he looked around, finally turning to her. "Thought you might've, I dunno, packed me up. I was dead, after all."

He had meant to joke but the look in Rose's eyes, unidentifiable but undeniably mournful, struck the grin from his face. Reaching him in two short strides, Rose wrapped her arms around the Doctor and pressed her face to his chest, held him as tightly as she ever had. Returning her embrace, the Doctor felt the flood of emotions she had held back while they were at Torchwood. They were muddy, incomprehensible even to her, he sensed. There was relief, a warm and achingly deep happiness that he was home, and guilt, certainly guilt.

He would have asked her about it all but she refused to let him go and he smiled when he saw her press her nose into his shirt and breathe him in.


	6. I Get by with a Little Help

The Doctor was unfit to return to work for several more weeks but Rose could not leave Torchwood in the midst of the upheaval. Jackie and Tony watched the Doctor during the day while Rose was at work, Wolfram and a handful of other personnel guarding the flat and surrounds. Rose brought the Doctor home bits of tech to amuse himself with and insisted on either bringing home or making dinner. She wasn't entirely convinced, even after his impressive recovery, that the Doctor wouldn't be done in by her mother's cooking.

Much as she hated it, and knew he did too, Rose refused to spend the night with the Doctor as had become their norm before the incident at Eastbourne, fearing she might do damage to his injury in her sleep. When he got his stitches out, Rose found him curled in her bed when she came out of the shower that night. Slipping under the covers, Rose pressed herself against his back and wrapped an arm about his chest, felt him hum happily as she did so.

It occurred to her that night before she fell asleep that she hadn't felt the Doctor's loss because their psychic connection had remained intact, albeit incredibly weak owing to the distance. The flat feeling she had had, replaced by a dawning melancholy might simply have been withdrawal. Like the Helios flight broadcast, she had felt that their link had shut down, not been obliterated. This made sense of it all because she couldn't deny that she was dizzyingly, incredibly happy that he was in her bed, that she was surrounded by the smell of him, that they had played 'would you rather' over dinner with choices pertaining to which species they had met that they would rather (or rather not) shag, what worlds they would rather be stuck on and so on. His presence was contentment to her, all the complexities of their feelings aside, he was home.

-#-

When the Doctor declared that he would return to work, he had been manic. Nearly a month of inactivity had driven him up the wall and it had taken every ounce of strength he possessed not to disassemble their flat's appliances on his rougher days. He was up an hour earlier than Rose the day he returned to Torchwood, had made her an extravagant breakfast and fidgeted in the jeep the whole ride in.

Equally, if not moreso, glad to have the Doctor back at work if only to curb his pent up energy, Rose was never the less reserved about his return. She had made a few remarks to him about things she had overheard or incidents wherein someone had mentioned John Smith in a less than flattering light, owing to his newly discovered heritage. However, Rose wasn't certain the Doctor had listened or taken her words to heart. She watched his face in profile when he enthusiastically greeted the officer at the front desk by name and received a stony nod in return. This didn't seem to phase him and Rose could only grab his hand briefly in the stairwell and offer him a weak smile for the grin he gave her before they parted.

For the first few days, the Doctor was too excited to notice, the Time Lord in him casting about for things to stretch his brain while being oblivious to the emotions and actions of others. Fairly constant attention from Peter helped him in his illusion that the status quo prevailed.

It was on his second trip to see Hasrat that it started to sink in the for the Doctor. He danced about her desk, peppering her with questions about the samples on her desk but he couldn't ignore the whispers behind his back as he did so. Eventually Hasrat sat and jammed her eye to a microscope, mumbling about deadlines, photo sensitivity and the like. The Doctor stood with his hands in his pockets, glee evaporated, and looked at her for a moment before he looked over his shoulder. Every eye was turned to him though some were sheepish enough to look away when he faced them. Most watched the Doctor as he left, their eyes burning into him in a mass scrutiny he hadn't experienced since his days of rabble rousing on Gallifrey.

He didn't tell Rose. Over dinner or on Rdis excursions on the weekends she would invariably relate a story about the restructuring of Secondary, and the Doctor felt guilty though he knew he shouldn't. Initially Rose took his, relative to his manic days, subdued manner as sign that the Doctor was engaged again. When he became unusually silent, verbally and mentally, she began to suspect he wasn't telling her something. He started having more frequent bad dreams and Rose had to persuade him that the answer was not for him to stay up while she slept in the hopes that at least her rest might be preserved.

Bad Wolf was cunning, clever and vicious. She suspected the cause immediately and confirmed her hunch one day when they walked up to their respective floors. At Tech two, he forced a smile and Rose made like she was continuing up, just like normal. She slipped back down after him a second later and cracked the door. Head down, fists shoved deep in his pockets, the Doctor walked to the Shed at the back of the floor, watched warily by his co-workers as he went. With the exception of a brief greeting by Peter, no one said a word to the Doctor and Rose guessed he had stopped trying to engage them as was his wont.

Throughout the day Rose thought about him, how his shoulders had fell when he walked into a place he used to love to spend time in. She thought about Time Lords and lost companions and the meaning of 'only,' as in one of a kind. It was then that she decided it was time to put into action a plan she had been formulating and researching for a while. In the interim, she took him to the Rdis after work, piloted it out into the black, affixed a hammock to the doorframe itself and they hung outside the Rdis and watched Jupiter's storm. She held him so tightly her arms burned, until they both started to giggle and eventually dissolved into a fit of laughter.

-#-

"Is Bad Wolf an alien, too?"

The Doctor looked up into the middle distance before slowly turning his head to regard the door of the Shed. He frowned at Karen in an old and dangerous way as he turned off the music that was constantly playing in his room.

"She came from your universe, she looks like you..." Karen said, though she wasn't bold, none of the Tech workers were and they only crowded about the Shed entrance because they had numbers.

Ripping off his specs, the Doctor deposited them deftly into his jacket pocket before striding to the horde outside his door, his hands nonchalantly in his pockets. "By that brilliant observation, you could say that any of you _look like me_ , so which is it? Am I an alien that you lot resemble or are you all humans that I resemble? Hmm?"

A sneer of disgust pulled at the Doctor's features as he watched the Tech workers warily eye one another. With an exasperated huff, the Doctor pushed past them. "Bad Wolf is the most human human being I have _ever_ met, for the record," the Doctor said, pausing at the stairwell door and looking back at the gaggle. Peter regarded him over his shoulder; he hadn't left his bench to join the others. "Whole helluva a lot more human than any of you," the Doctor whispered as he left Tech two.

He took the opportunity to run up the stairs to Boring three, trying to burn off the anger that coursed through him hot and swift. Rose wouldn't have been offended at the insinuation that she wasn't human, it wasn't that the Doctor was angry on her behalf like it was some kind of sleight. No, he was furious at the thought that any one at Torchwood might treat her differently as they had him for the very suggestion. Slowing, he walked the last two flights and had to smirk. It would've been amusing, actually, to see anyone try and get away with any such thing.

The corridor was remarkably full, a meeting must have just ended, the Doctor suspected. The conversations dimmed a second when his presence was noted. The Doctor had to force himself to adopt a relaxed gate toward Rose when he spied her in the middle of the hallway.

"...urging caution in case of any extraterrestrial activity," a man in a suit was saying to Rose from his position next to her. He eyed the Doctor with mistrust, perhaps even disgust.

Feeling a little raw, the Doctor couldn't muster a smile as he said blackly, "yeah, watch out for the alien, Rose, I hear it's catching."

"Is it?" Rose asked, regarded the Doctor a moment and then quickly wrapped a hand around his tie where it poked out from his suit jacket and drew him into a kiss. It was blunt, their lips pressed together with near painful force. Drawing back as quickly as she had plucked the Doctor to her, Rose once again looked him over, detached and clinical. Then she turned to the man at her side. "What d'ya think, Simon? Am I displaying any alien characteristics?"

Simon was gobsmacked, as was every other individual on the floor, their conversations dead in the face of Bad Wolf doing decidedly un-Bad Wolf things. The Doctor had left his eyes closed a minute beyond when Rose pulled away from him and even when they opened, he stared at her with his lips slightly parted, his body inclined toward her.

All Rose had to do was tilt her head a sliver to the side as a sign of impatience to move Simon to speak. "No Bad Wolf, no sign of alien characteristics."

Rose nodded at him, her face gravely serious. "P'rhaps we should monitor me then, in case I start to, you know, show _signs_."

"Yes, Imeanno! Of course not, Bad Wolf," Simon back-pedalled, breathing fast.

"That might be...inconsiderate of us, yeah?" Granting Simon some small relief, Rose glanced about the floor as she said this and the tableau sprang back to life, everyone talking too loudly, moving too quickly.

Rose winked at the Doctor. "There's a meeting I want you to sit in on," she said to him then turned on her heel and walked down the hall. It took him a minute to follow, rubbing the back of his head as all eyes that had been keenly trained on him at first were hastily averted.

From those in attendance, the Doctor gathered that the meeting was about action Torchwood was considering, possibly an intervention. Mostly personnel heads sat around the boardroom table and Pete was in attendance, making whatever was up for discussion of some import. Laying hands on a seat next to Pete at one head of the table, Rose at the other, the Doctor slouched into it and focused mostly on her. The kiss had been shocking and pleasant but not quite enough to distract the Doctor entirely from his troubles.

"Right," Rose said as she sat, everyone else quickly taking their seats after she had, "Simon'll fill us in on the personnel requirements for the summit and our areas of concern."

The Doctor had heard of the summit, word of it had been floating around the Tower for months, but summits and the like weren't really his cup of tea. He mostly ignored Simon and watched Rose flicking through stacks of paper, taking notes and generally looking beautiful behind a curtain of blonde hair, the only one in the room in jeans and a t-shirt. She ignored him as usual. He had come to understand that he could make her laugh or smile or say things she normally wouldn't at work and that she avoided his gaze as a preventative measure.

"Request, Bad Wolf?" A man the Doctor recognized as a higher up in personnel asked when Simon took a minute. Rose nodded at him. "This is a UN initiative. Why are we involved at all? UNIT doesn't want us there and, frankly, this man power expenditure is steep for something we have no stake in."

Rose inhaled and exhaled before responding, calmly but firmly. "Because I want us there. The UN, whether we like it or not an' I know we don't," the room chuckled at this, "has generally accepted authority to speak on behalf of earth in extraterrestrial affairs. UNIT needs our manpower in the event of a security breach, terrestrial or otherwise, an' that's got out foot in the door. Let's see if we can't put that foot to good use an' influence a few member nations, shall we?"

Simon continued after nods of ascension were exchanged around the table at Rose's words. The Doctor smiled up at the ceiling as he squirmed internally. He loved it when she got authoritative and crafty.

When Simon had changed over to areas of concern, another man at the table cleared his throat and all eyes went to him. Rose frowned, displeasure at the second interruption radiating off of her.

"Sorry Bad Wolf, I only wonder that we might want to keep details of security concerns, well, secure."

Rose looked at the man who had spoken hard before sitting back and looking around the room. "Ashburn...this is where we discuss security concerns...because it's secure...overlay signal disruptors, Azro polarized glass..." She cocked a brow at him. "What exactly are ya concerned about?"

Swallowing, a sheen of sweat breaking out over his forehead, Ashburn's eyes flicked across the table to where the Doctor sat.

The Doctor rolled his eyes.

"Ohhh," Rose intoned, standing and every man in the room save Pete and the Doctor flinched. "I get it, more a' this then." She walked over to Ashburn, contained fury in her features. "Can't trust the alien, not one of us-"

Ashburn stood abruptly, grimacing. " _He is not one of us_! And he cannot be trusted!"

They stared one another down a moment before Rose spoke, quietly. "He has been here for _months_ , had access to Torchwood's most sensitive operations n' you think he's been, what? Biding his time until he could infiltrate a diplomatic UN function?"

Ashburn looked at his feet giving Rose the opportunity to look around the room and see how many other people had shared his ridiculous concerns.

"And as for whether or not he is one of us, all a' ya," again, Rose looked around the room, her eyes scalding, "that is the man who kept us from flyin' blind against the Inigutsk..." She was breathing deeply, her eyes falling to the Doctor's as she made a decision. "The same man who closed the breach years ago, who defeated the cybermen...who saved us from the darkness." The Doctor raised a brow at her and Rose mentally apologised to him.

"Wait, sir," one of the men addressed Pete, "you said it was the Doctor who closed the breach-"

"And the Doctor who was key to operation Black Sky," said another.

"Yeah, I did," said Pete before looking aside at the Doctor.

Crossing his feet atop the table, the Doctor sniffed. "Well, that cat's out the bag."

Rose crossed her arms over her chest, shifted her weight to one leg as all eyes slowly drifted back to her. "I want a memo out to all personnel, all departments. Any Torchwood employee bein' less than civil on account of someone's species is gonna have my boot shoved so far up their ass they'll taste the leather." She clenched her jaw. The Doctor smiled at her, his eyes twinkling.

Sitting down, Rose ran a hand through her hair. "Right, Simon, as you were."

-#-

They took the Rdis out that night and had a scan about. Luck had an asteroid bazaar passing nearby and they were able to wander amongst throngs of aliens, hands twined, relatively free of fear of hostile intent. A small reptilian creature tried to pick Rose's pocket but she caught it easily enough. It eased both of them to be there, like old times, marvelling at the small wonders of the universe.

Rose could tell by the way the Doctor was smiling at the various life forms that it was the diversity of the place that warmed his soul. No one was looking twice at him, everyone was a shade of different.

Having stopped to examine a stall full of oils from much farther flung areas of the universe, Rose unstoppered a bottle and lifted it to her own nose before offering it to the Doctor.

"Venutian spearmint," he grinned at her.

Rose smiled back. "You used t'always have a spare toothbrush for me infused with this stuff."

"My human companions were always fickle about personal hygiene. Now I understand why," The Doctor commented, running his tongue over his teeth.

They left the stall and the crowds thronged around them, affording them more privacy than the quietest nook at Torchwood.

"Donna and I went to a planet called Midnight once," the Doctor murmured in Rose's ear from his position at her shoulder. "She wanted a spa day-"

"Bet you loved that," Rose looked up to him to say with a smirk before returning her eyes forward.

"Yeah, well, I went for a little adventure, something small and safe I thought."

Rose snorted at him.

"I went out into the barrens of the planet on a tour, packed onto a bus with seven people, seven humans," he clarified. "It was a few hours and we talked through lots of it. They were interesting, all leading their lives, a professor, parents, grumpy teenager, brilliant."

He had stepped more to her side and Rose could see his face as he spoke, his eyes darting back and forth amongst the crowd as they picked their way forward.

"There was this woman who'd recently split from her partner..." he sniffed, "we commiserated about being separated from the people we love by absurd distances."

The Doctor's hand gripped Rose's tighter and she responded, leaned into his side like she used to do all the time.

"But you know how trouble finds me...we were attacked, and I say attacked because I know now that being didn't knock on our transport to borrow a cup of sugar," the Doctor tapped the side of his nose. "But at the time all we knew was that it had taken possession of one of us, the woman I mentioned, Sky her name was, and it mimicked us."

"Mimicked ya?" Rose frowned at him.

They had inadvertently followed the sound of music and come to where the three-piece band was playing. There their feet stopped.

"Yeah, just our words, everything we said. Gradually it started to be able to say what we were saying when we said it-"

Rose shook her head. "Get the feelin' I know where this is goin,'" she said, brow furrowed. It had been one of the first lessons she had learned at Torchwood, that fear is a frightful and powerful thing, in groups particularly. Partly it was this knowledge that led her to be so contained at work, lest her own fear infect others.

"They thought it went from her to me," the Doctor said quietly and Rose gripped his hand tighter, "and all of them, almost all of them were for chucking that alien thing from the airlock." He swallowed and Rose looked up to see him frowning at the memory. She felt through their connection the cold-sweat inducing fear that he had felt, saw a flash of those who had surrounded him as they shouted and tried to drag him to his death. A bunch of humans, people who he had thought marvellous in their normalcy.

The Doctor inhaled deeply, returned to a normal volume. "It was the stewardess who saved me, saved us, in the end. Figured it out, took herself and Sky out the airlock and the thing let me go." He shook his head in amazement. "Human beings...sometimes I think you're the most brilliant creatures I've ever met, and you teach me so much," here he squeezed Rose's hand, "and sometimes...sometimes I think my people should've sealed Earth off in a time lock."

Rose faced him and took his other hand, smiled up at him with hazel eyes that could undo him easily, any time. "That's why ya love us, 'cause we remind ya of your people so much. There were Time Lords that wouldn't lift a finger, not t'save millions...and then there was you," Rose lifted a hand to his cheek, "the best of 'em."

Drawing him into a hug, the Doctor felt grounded with her arms strong about him. Not in a way that felt trapping, rather, that felt liberating. He knew he could've said he wanted to go anywhere and she would either wish him well or join him. Either way, she remained a thing in the multiverse he could believe in, the name that kept him fighting.

-#-

Time and Space. Rose's gods for wont of a better name. She recognised their supreme authority, that human beings could manipulate certain things, certain circumstances, but they would step on the most foolproof plans in a heartbeat. Few humans understood this better than the Bad Wolf.

So what was the harm in praying, she had thought, as she dialled the number for the Bedford Temp Agency.

Rose had been doing background on this universe's Donna Noble for a few months, just incase she turned out to be deficient to the Donna they had known, à la Pete Tyler. The last time she had checked, Donna had a job and Rose was loathe to manipulate the other woman's life overly much in order to do what she planned.

Time and Space. _Good on ya_ , Rose thought when the receptionist informed her that Miss Noble was available.

-#-

Donna Noble stepped into the foyer of Torchwood Tower with more caution than she should have. As a rule, she always walked into a new job with her head held high and a brilliant smile. Temps had to do that, she knew, there was always the chance their next job could wind up being great and potentially permanent.  
But this was weird and she couldn't shake it. The agency had said she'd been requested by name, that the employer had hired her before. But TW Industries didn't ring a bell and neither did the address she was given. Plus, the contact's name was John Smith, which she thought was ridiculous.  
Frankly, Donna was worried she was walking into a porn studio or something similarly shady. But the agency had told her the wage and she had asked when she was supposed to show up. Just in case it wasn't porn, she wasn't prepared to walk away from a salary like that.  
"Hello, I'm Donna Noble. I'm here to see John Smith," she said hesitantly to the uniformed woman at the desk. She felt stupid when she said she was there to see John Smith and worse when the woman looked at her like she was Jehova's witness who had just interrupted dinner.  
"I mean, the agency said John Smith, they might've gotten it wrong or-"  
Donna was cut off as the woman raised what looked like her watch to her lips. "Smith, this is front desk. You've someone to see you-"  
" **Send them up,** "a voice responded, cutting her off, and Donna raised her eyes at the device.  
"Sir, she doesn't have clearance-"  
The voice on the other end groaned. " **How many times do I have to tell you people? Send up Jackie Tyler, she can get around just fine without a bloody armed escort,** " the voice said peevishly. " **Although, I know it might seem at times like she needs one...** "  
"But sir,"the woman at the desk tried again, her patience clearly tried.  
" **Oh, all right! I'm coming but I'm programming her into the system, this is ridiculous,** " the tirade cut out halfway as the comm went silent.  
"Honestly, of all the things to worry about, Sycorax, Inigutsk, running out of jelly babies," a man dressed in a blue suit groused as he came into the foyer via the fire exit. His jacket and shirt were undone and wires trailed out of them, hanging down to his shins. "and related to half the bloody-" He had been distracted by the wires, sorting through them with a frown as he did so, until he lifted his head and saw her.

Live long enough and you realise that it's the bonds you've formed that sustain you far more than any sustenance, whatever mixture of gases you breathe, or the fluid that makes up the majority of what courses through your circulatory system. Live long enough and reunions fast become some of the sweetest things you ever experience. He remembered seeing Sarah Jane again for the first time in decades, seeing Rose again after just a few short years.

"I must've got it wrong," Donna said, shaking her head as she regarded at the stranger before her and his blank look at seeing her.

A smile crept onto the Doctor's face as he shook his head, "oh no, you have got it so very right." He walked toward her, his best friend, the woman he was in no small way genetically related to, the woman who had made him _really_ laugh for the first time after losing Rose. He grabbed her hand and shook it enthusiastically, his smile manic.

"I'm from the temp agency," Donna said, smiling in a slightly befuddled manner as the stranger pumped her hand.

"Yes you are!" The Doctor affirmed.

"I'm Donna."

" _Oh yes_!"

"You're John Smith?" She asked to confirm because nothing about him really allayed her fears despite the fact that he now seemed to recognise that she had been hired in the first place.

"OH YES!" He roared, finally dropping her hand.

"What exactly do you do here at TW Industries?" Donna asked as the woman at the desk scanned her biometrics into the system.

The Doctor sniffed, "what don't we do here, eh Angela?" He asked the desk worker and she glared at him. The Doctor's grin didn't falter. "And it's Torchwood, not TW Industries, that's just a cover."  
"I've never heard of it," Donna said as they walked to the fire exit.

"We're in charge of all things extraterrestrial for the British Isles," the Doctor explained as they climbed a few flights and entered another floor. He was still processing that she was there, not entirely convinced that this wasn't a dream, and had been taking her through the steps Peter had taken him through months back. "Hallo! Need a comm for Donna here," he grinned at the Comm tech, oblivious to the wires dangling out of his shirt as he stuffed his hands in his pockets and regarded her.

Donna was smiling at him. "Extraterrestrial...like aliens?"

"Mmmhmm," the Doctor hummed, "yep."

"Like Martians?" She was grinning, thinking he was joshing her.

"Technically there are no sentient lifeforms on Mars, not yet. There will be, at least, in alternate universes there will be at some later point in time from this one in the universe's shared chronologies."

Donna's smile faded but the Doctor didn't catch it as the tech handed her a watch similar to the one she had seen at the front desk. "It's got auditory name recognition, surname, given or code, just bring it to your lips and speak. In the event of an emergency, terrestrial or otherwise, say 'code mauve' and help'll be on the way. You receive messages with priority given by rank. Got that?"

"Yeah, yeah got it," Donna said after a second though she wasn't sure she had.

They thanked the tech and the Doctor led the way to the lift. "Floor I work on is a bit of a go from here so we'll take the lift. Personally, I love the stairs, gets the heart pumping," he said as they ascended.

"Why mauve? Why not code red?" Donna asked, looking at the comm confusedly.

The Doctor looked at the comm as well. "Universally recognised signal for danger is mauve, not red."

"Right," Donna said weakly.

"And, while we're on it, if you are in danger," he leaned in to her, his smile dimmed but warm, "say 'Doctor' into that thing, not code mauve."

"Why's that?" She looked at him strangely, felt a connection to him she couldn't make sense of.

"'Cause that'll call me!" He said brightly as the doors opened and he stepped out.

At a slower pace, Donna followed him into the massive white space, overwhelmed by the sheer variety of things she couldn't identify on the numerous bench tops they passed and the massive computer banks that lined the walls.

"Now Donna," the Doctor said, stopping next to a table at which a young man with dirty blonde hair sat, "this is Peter, codename Blue Turtle-"

"Don't call me that," Peter said, his voice soft as he looked up at them.

"And Peter is brilliant," the Doctor continued as though he hadn't heard, his arm landing around Peter's shoulders, making the other man blush. "If you need anything and I'm not around or I have incapacitated myself somehow, find Peter."

Donna and Peter shook hands. "You'll be working with us then?" Peter asked.

Looking down at the mess of what looked like stainless steel lego and the instruments on his table, it took Donna a minute to nod. "I guess so."

"Yes she is!" The Doctor crowed, turning on his heel and walking toward the Shed.

"This is where most of my stuff is but I hop around the different floors, Bio, Chem, wherever anyone asks me. Here, I've had you programmed for access," he took her hand and slid it along a particular patch of the blank wall they stood before and a door appeared, hissing open.

More overwhelmed with each passing minute, Donna looked around the large room, its shelves crammed with impossible looking things, its tables laden with everything form the mundane to the grotesque (the Doctor having reacquired some samples from Bio).

"I get the best stuff," the Doctor sniffed, "usually 'cause I'm the first to recognise its potential," he picked up something that resembled a kazoo and peered down its length.

"This isn't right," Donna breathed from the door and the Doctor's head snapped toward her. "I'm a temp from Chiswick...I type...I file...I don't...I don't," she waved vaguely at the Shed and the Doctor looked around it before settling back on her. She looked unsure of herself as she had when they'd first met and she had told the Doctor that he scared her to death.

He walked over to her, a reassuring smile on his face. "You don't even know what we do here yet, but you know what?" He gazed at Donna in silence until she shook her head at him. "You are going to be brilliant at it. I know you will."

Stepping back so she could look out at the rest of Tech two, Donna shook her head again. "But they all have...degrees and things, they're clever..."

"Oh yes," the Doctor agreed, "BScs, MScs, PhDs, even a few double PhDs." He looked down at her and grinned. "And you are smarter than them all by half, I guarantee it."

Eventually Donna smiled weakly back up at him.

Showing her around the rest of the floors he routinely cavorted on, the Doctor left her holding down a lever for someone in Bio while they the monitored the response of a large insect to different sound frequencies. He dashed up the stairs to Boring three, tried Rose's office, found it empty and proceeded to open meeting room doors in an attempt to locate her. He went through all three Boring floors and raced to Hanger one once he had. She was in the middle of a training exercise of some sort, kneeling down by one of the Helios, one of its side panels open.

"ROSE!" He called, chest heaving as he ran over to her.

Rose stood but was unprepared for the force with which he collided with her. They nearly toppled over but he managed to stagger them about, hugging her with all of his glee. "Oh Rose, you'll never guess!" He said, face pressed into her shoulder.

He set her down but held on to her, grinning at her though her expression was guarded as was usual for her at work. His head snapped to the side to regard the 15 or so personnel observing them. "Hallo!" He greeted them then returned his attention to Rose. "It's Donna! Donna is here! Donna Noble, _the_ Donna!"

"Yeah, got it," Rose squeezed his arms and he could see the smile in her eyes. "Don't tell me ya left her on her own here," she said, looking down at his naked chest and the wires taped to it through his open shirt.

"Oh," the Doctor looked at her like she was being absurd, "she's _fine_. She's Donna! Ha!" He gave her one last manic grin before sprinting off, letting off a 'WHOO!' before he entered the stairwell.

Rose cleared her throat and pulled her black leather jacket down from where it had slipped up during the assault by the Doctor. "Now then," she said to the personnel, looking especially sternly at those who were smirking at her.

The Doctor and Donna were eating a late lunch in the Shed, strictly against Torchwood policy, while he instructed her on how to adjust the homeostabiliser he had reconnected to himself via the wires that had been dangling from him the entire day.

"Ah!" He shrieked, "blimey that tickles!"

"How do we know if it works?" Donna asked as she flicked buttons in the sequence the Doctor had prescribed, silently pleased that her typing prowess was coming in handy.

"More a matter of we're seeing if doesn't work...or works the opposite way of how it was intended," he said, concentrating on the readout screen.

"We're seein' if it'll kill people, you mean?" Donna asked knowingly and the Doctor grinned at her.

"I'd be careful, Donna. It's Donna isn't it?"

The Doctor and Donna looked to the door to find Karen and a few of the Tech employees standing there.

Donna looked at the other woman and smiled, pointing at the Doctor who looked much less amused. "He's the one strapped to this thing, not me."

"I meant you should be careful associating with aliens," Karen clarified, stopping just short of sneering at the Doctor.

Donna looked at Karen a minute, then back to the Doctor, then back to Karen. "I thought all you did at Torchwood was associate w'aliens." Out of the field of her vision, the Doctor grinned at Donna.

Unamused and unphased, Karen nodded at the Doctor again. "Go on, ask him if he's human."

Appearing in the small gathering at the doors, Pete pressed in to get to Karen's side. "Not this again. We have orders," he said, though he didn't have a commanding bone in his body.

The Doctor watched Peter and felt deep affection for him alongside the ache that had grown whenever his co-workers did something like this. Everyone snapped to look at Donna when she burst out laughing.

"Waitwaitwait," she managed after her outburst, "are you sayin' he's an alien?" She motioned to the Doctor for Karen's benefit.

Karen crossed her arms and nodded stiffly once.

Donna looked at the Doctor, shaking her head and smiling. "No way! Seriously?" The Doctor nodded, watching her closely.

He had details as to the exact amount of alien he still was but they touched too closely to his relationship with his universe's Donna for him to want to bring them up just yet, if ever. He grinned when Donna burst out laughing again, holding her stomach, and those who had gathered at the door to harangue the Doctor and warn her shifted uncomfortably.

"Whot, is the leader of your planet, like, a 65 year old white guy with a bald spot and a gut?" She asked the Doctor. "Or an elderly white lady w'dentures and a hair lip?" The Doctor shrugged as if to say she wasn't far off, smile broadening by the minute.

Donna shook her head and looked back at Karen and the others. "Y'got...like, laser death rays n'space ships n'like, pickled alien bits and you think I should be worried about him?"

How the Doctor loved Donna in that moment.

Huffing, Karen turned abruptly and left, her entourage trailing her though Peter entered the Shed.  
Flicking a few more dials, Donna was still smiling when the Doctor exclaimed "Hot!" As the homeostabiliser hummed. "Are there lots of aliens that looks just like humans?" She asked.

The Doctor nodded, looking at the readings again as he squirmed in discomfort. "Yeah, bipedal carbon based fluid-forms are all over the place. Cold blooded, hot blooded. Skin colour depends on the wavelength of radiation their sun gives off, though."

"What colour was your sun?" Peter asked and the Doctor busied himself with the readout screen for so long Peter thought he might not have heard his question.

"It was yellow, like Earth's, the main one that is, big ol' black body emitter. The second sun burnt blue." What had started out as a torrential babble of words as was normal for the Doctor ended in a slow murmur.

"You're not here by choice are you?" Peter asked but he received no reply as the Doctor shot up, ripping wires off of himself and running to the back of the Shed.

"This thing is brilliant! I think it's Zyrillian but I can't be sure. Seems to work well enough on your standard carbon based fluid form, though, eh? Personnel's gonna love this, medic in a box!"

Peter and Donna watched as he went, half of what he said going right over their heads, neither convinced that he hadn't heard the question.

-#-

He wasn't in her office, which was odd. Usually her days ran longer than his and she would find him sitting in her chair, feet propped on the desk, grinning like a maniac. She had asked him why he didn't just take the tube and he had avoided the question.

Rose sat down at her computer and pulled up the security feeds for the foyer, then their records for the day. She scanned to 8:15 am and saw Donna walk in, then the Doctor's reaction shortly thereafter. Sitting back in her chair, Rose watched the video with a smile she hid behind her fingers.

-#-

"Here's trouble," Rose said as she entered Tech two and found the Doctor and Donna alone, working at something on Peter's desk.

Looking up at her, the Doctor frowned down at the watch on his comm. "Blimey, got a bit carried away."

"S'all right with me. How about our newest employee, though? You can't keep her chained up here all the time," Rose smiled, her guard down slightly with the room empty.

The Doctor grinned at Rose. "Donna Noble, this is Rose Tyler, she's in charge."

The Two women shook hands. "Nice to meet ya, Donna. 'Round here everyone calls me Bad Wolf but you can call me Rose in private."

"Right," Donna said, "what's with Bad Wolf?"

"Code name," Rose said without missing a beat and though it wasn't really an answer, Donna didn't feel free to push the issue further.

Eyes glinting, the Doctor stood and regarded both women. "What d'you think? Dinner and a trip up?" He raised a brow in question to them and Rose's smile broadened as Donna looked uncertain.

"Trip up? Trip where?" She asked.

-#-

They walked to the dingy chip shop for dinner, the only place Rose and the Doctor could ever really bring themselves to go for food in the area, that and the falafel joint on the same street. Everything else was all posh cafés and the like. Dipping down an alley as a short cut, the Doctor and Donna two steps behind her, Rose was lighting a fag when two men stepped from behind a dumpster and pointed pistols at her.

"We'll have your purse, sweetheart," one of them said roughly.

When the Doctor and Donna cleared the corner, both robbers looked at them for a split second, recalculating their numbers. In that second, Rose, who had her hand in her jacket to put away her light, whipped her blaster out and shot them both down before they'd had a chance to react.

Donna screamed and ducked, the Doctor crouching to shield her but it was over before before it had begun. Rose looked over her shoulder to make certain there weren't other witnesses, which would have made things awkward, slipped her blaster back into its holster. She knelt and checked their pulses as she spoke into her comm, fag dangling from her lips. "Torchwood Tower this is Bad Wolf, inform the police I've got two robbers sittin' in the alley on Gill street north of Limehouse." The comm chattered back at her as she picked up the guns they had dropped, knocking their slides back one by one. "Unbelievable," she muttered to herself, fag dancing as she did so.

"Are they dead?" Donna whispered, looking from Rose to the Doctor who had stood and was helping her up.

"Rose?" The Doctor asked, voice low.

Taking a drag, Rose removed the fag from her lips as she looked over her shoulder at them, "airgun." She held up the gun for them to see before dropping it with a plastic clatter and reaching under her jacket. "They're stunned, they'll wake up in a couple'a hours," she informed them as, fag back in her lips, she used zip ties to bind their hands behind their backs. "Give us a hand, eh?" Rose said to the Doctor as she began dragging them toward a signpost.

Stooping to heft the robber by the arm pits, the Doctor eyed Rose with a smile. "Torchwood personnel have to have their blasters set to kill at all times, it's policy, policy that you signed off on with full support if I recall."

Rose stood from strapping the men to the post. "Yeah, policy I support but don't follow. Come on." She walked on but the Doctor beckoned to Donna who still stood somewhat shell shocked at the alley's entrance.

"Bad Wolf, eh?" She said breathlessly to the Doctor.

"Mmm," the Doctor intoned with a dip of his head.

"Hey Emile," Rose said genially to the man at the shop when they entered. They ordered and Rose paid before they sat down at a table in the corner to wait.

"So you've probably got, like, loads of years with the army then, yeah?" Donna asked Rose.

"No, not really," Rose replied, "you just pick up some things quick working for Torchwood...travellin' with him," she poked the Doctor with her foot under the table and he grinned. "I was a shop girl 'fore I met him."

Donna's brows shot up at this. "Really?"

"Still haven't got my A levels," Rose confirmed making the other woman's jaw drop.

"But...John said you were in charge n'that," Donna said, shaking her head.

Rose shrugged. "I do a lot at Torchwood because I can, have the know how."

"And you got that travellin' with him? Where? Africa? Middle East?" Donna laughed and shook her head, regarding the pair she was with. John was skinny as a rail and Donna was convinced she could take him if necessary, alien or no. While she now knew differently, Donna thought Rose looked like a early thirties blonde who probably enjoyed pilates and health shakes. They didn't look like world travellers, let alone like they should be capable of what Rose had done to her would be attackers.

The Doctor's eyes grew wide with excitement. "Oh, Donna. The places we've travelled-" Their order was called up, interrupting him. "Come on, we'll show you," he said as they got up.

-#-

Donna laughed at the Rdis when she first saw it and both the Doctor and Rose looked like she had just told them she thought their baby had a lumpy head. They had wandered through Hanger one amidst hulking and impressive space ships before they came to the Rdis and Donna was merely underwhelmed by it in comparison.

Glaring at her, the Doctor unlocked it, pushed open the door and twitched his head in the direction of inside. Donna went in. The Doctor and Rose exchanged a glance along the front of the Rdis where they both leaned. Donna stumbled back out.

"Whot the hell," she breathed, hand to her mouth before slowly circumnavigating the outside of it.

"Imagine if it was the Tardis," Rose murmured to the Doctor, thinking of how impressive the beautiful fully sentient ship had been.

"I know," he said regretfully. "Come on, bigger-on-the-inside isn't even the best part!" He and Rose entered and Donna followed only after a minute in which she seriously reconsidered her new workplace again. It had been a long day.

"Close the door," the Doctor called as Donna entered and she felt the floor beneath her shake once she had.

"Where're we going?" Donna asked, coming to stand next to Rose at the console.

Rose smiled at Donna reassuringly. "We can't go far..." she looked over to the Doctor. "What d'you think, Doctor?"

"I think..." He looked at both women with manic eyes as a grin split his face. Donna and Rose, back on the, well, the almost Tardis. Certain parts of him were aching with joy at that moment. "I think Venus."

"Venus," Rose affirmed.

"Venus?" Donna breathed.

The Doctor threw a lever and the humming, vibrating ship shuttered to a stop. He looked at Donna, smiling, before he nodded to the door.

Nervously tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, Donna looked to Rose who likewise smiled at her. "S'okay. The Rdis systems protect us, give us air, proper gravity." She had a thought and looked over to the Doctor again. "Are we parked or idling?"

"Idling," he replied, "short trip. Can't see much on the surface anyway, the weathers' terrible this point in Venus's timeline."

They walked as a group to the doors and the Doctor looked aside at Donna's face as he drew the doors in. Astonishment lit her face just as the sun did, the orb noticeably larger from their orbit above Venus than it was on earth. Partially obscuring the sun was a vast orange planet swirled with clouds and surrounded on all sides by flecks of light in the black of space.

Rose leaned against the Doctor's side and they all stood looking out for a while, Donna drinking it all in, half terrified, half euphoric at the majesty of it all.

"It's quiet," Donna whispered.

"Yep," the Doctor agreed, "space around earth mostly is...sorry to say it's because most species consider this a pretty boring part of the galaxy."

At this Donna let out a weak bark of a laugh. "so no aliens around then?"

"We get some passin' by," Rose answered, "but it's usually pretty quiet."

"Those aren't aliens, then?" Donna asked, pointing out the door. The Doctor and Rose had to lean around the frame to see what she was pointing at but the large grey ship soon drifted to fill the entirety of their view. The Doctor's mouth hung open as Rose frowned at the vessel before they looked at one another.

" **Bad Wolf, this is Torchwood Tower. We've got an incoming ship, eta quadrant. We've been trying to raise it on the wave-link for five minutes, on all other channels for ten. No response. Please Advise**." The comm on Rose's wrist chattered and she lifted it to her lips.

"Torchwood Tower, have you got an ID on the vessel type?" She asked, poking the Doctor to see if he did either. He shrugged at her and shook his head before looking back at it.

"Is it dangerous?" Donna asked.

"Dunno," the Doctor said. "Could be, could be a battleship but it doesn't look like it. No spiky things, everyone loves to put spiky things on their warships, thinks it looks intimidating." He looked back at Rose as her comm informed them they had not identified the ship and hence not identified the species. "What d'you think?" He grinned, "shall we go meet the neighbours?"

Rose advised the Tower that they were going in for a look as she dug in the bins under the grating that surrounded the console, the Doctor flicking switches and precisely scrolling dials.

"There we go," he said, the ship stilling again. "Gravity looks good, a little heavier than what you'll be used to Donna, feel like someone's pressing on your shoulders. We'll need breathers, though."

Rose handed out small breathers that looked like snorkels with small compressed air cylinders attached to their sides instead of breathing tubes. Donna wiggled her nose as the device sucked onto her face in a disconcerting way but noted she could move her lips still.

"Did you park us in a crawl space or somethin'?" Rose asked as she opened the door and found the top half of it blocked by a wall. The three of them crouched down to look along the open space, the top half of which came to Rose and Donna's shoulders.

"Didn't think so," the Doctor answered, throwing a glance at the console before looking back. "Oh well," he said and they set off, hunched over.

At the first body they came to, slouched against the corridor wall, Rose unholstered her blaster as they bent to look the creature over. It would've come up to their chests, was a pale shade of coral with two large eyes behind which were crescent shaped holes.

"Bipedal fluid-form?" Donna asked.

The Doctor smirked as he took out his sonic and scanned the creature. "Teelomere, I think. Looks a little bit different from what I remember but that could just be this universe," he murmured. "It's dead."

"Wounded?" Rose asked, eyes slipping back to the end of the corridor they hadn't come from constantly.

"No," the Doctor said eventually, putting his glasses on to better look at the Teelomere. "Looks like...respiratory obstruction?" He frowned at the sonic.

Standing, he urged them on, Rose at his side and Donna following close behind.

"They're all dead," Donna said quietly when they came into a common area and found it full of the still forms of the Teelomere.

Glaring about him, the Doctor went to several of the bodies and ran the sonic along them as Rose found a terminal.

"I don't know the language," Rose said aloud. The Doctor joined her a moment later and ran his sonic over it.

"They've all got the same symptoms-"

"Are we safe?" Donna asked suddenly, her arms wrapped tightly about herself.

Rose and the Doctor looked over at her. "If it was a pathogen of some sort, our breathers'll filter it out," the Doctor told her.

"Was it a pathogen?" Rose asked him as he went back to sonicing the terminal.

"Near as I can tell." His eyes ripped across lines of a text that Rose couldn't read as her comm chattered.

" **Bad Wolf, the ship will impact earth if not diverted from its present course**."

"Got it," Rose said into the comm, then to the Doctor, "we've got to find the bridge."

"Yeah," he agreed. As he soniced at the panel to bring up a map he said, "ventilation systems noted a slight increase in the particulate count two weeks ago but otherwise everything was normal. The computer should have sent a distress signal as soon as all life signs were lost but they didn't lose all life signs. They gained them.

Come on, this way!" He led them through another corridor and onto a lift. They stepped onto a small floor with a large vid screen and panels about it, the ship's bridge.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," the Doctor said to the Teelomere he moved to the floor so he could take its seat. He began typing at the terminal.

"Whatever's in their lungs then, its registering as life forms to the ship's systems," Rose ventured as she leaned on the back of his chair. Donna had gone to look out the window at the view, Venus slipping away to the left of it.

"Think so," the Doctor said, tapping away. "This was a research vessel. Might've been a sample they came into contact with."

"Can you change it's course?" Rose asked, frowning out at the view Donna was admiring, acutely aware of how close earth actually was at the speed they were presently travelling.

"I'll do you one better. I can send it home."

"We need to let the Teelomere know this thing, whatever it is, s'on board," Rose said.

The Doctor leaned back, bringing his face to within an inch of Rose's to regard her in the faint light from the vid screen. "We're going to have to route a message through the Shadow Directive. This ship, the Rdis, Torchwood. We don't have the ability to get a message to Teelo at any kind of speed." Rose nodded and walked a few steps from him, bringing her comm to her lips and relaying a message to the Tower.

The Doctor stood and slipped his hands into his pockets as he walked to Donna.

"My first aliens and they're all dead. Sort of...I dunno," she said quietly aside to him.

"Technically I'm your first alien and I am very alive, so..." The Doctor got her to look at him with that and he grinned a grin she could only read in the creases around the breather.

"Enough adventure for the day?" He asked and Donna nodded. Rose joined them and they began walking back the way they came.

"Ship'll warp back toward Teelo in 10 minutes," the Doctor said, more for Rose's benefit that Donna's.

"Shouldn't we...cover them, close their eyes or something?" Donna asked. She didn't flinch when the Doctor took her hand.

"Their eyes don't close like ours do...and I have no idea how the Teelomere honour their dead, Donna. It's best that we let them decide how they should take care of these people," the Doctor said softly.

Back on the ship, Donna leaned against the railing around the console as Rose piloted them back, the Doctor sitting next to her. "Are they nice people, the Teelomere? Friendly?"

The Doctor smiled warmly at her and her use of the word 'people.' "Yeah, they are." He slipped an arm around Donna's shoulders and hugged her, seeing that she was tired and overwhelmed.

She leaned into it for a second before stiffening. Backing away, Donna smacked the Doctor. "Oi, don't go getting' fresh w'me, alien boy!"

"Oi!" The Doctor yelled, glaring at Donna and then at the mirth he felt from Rose, though the empty time rotor obscured her from view.

The three of them stepped from the Rdis and the Doctor locked the door. Donna stepped back and looked the unassuming blue box over. "Do you ever get used to that?" She looked aside at Rose who stood, arms crossed over her chest, considering the Rdis as well.

"No," Rose said simply and she meant it in response to all of Donna's unasked questions. You didn't get used to death, to aliens, to space, to the beauty of any of it. She looked at Donna and smiled. "I'll have someone from personnel take you home, it's late," she remarked and Donna nodded. "Come in late tomorrow, too, after lunch."

"See you tomorrow, Donna," the Doctor said, smiling at her, eyes roaming her face to drink in the details of it.

"And you, John," Donna replied.

"Call me Doctor," He insisted gently, a little pain slipping into his eyes at her use of his pseudonym.

"That your alien name?" Donna smirked at him.

"Something like that," he shrugged, tugging on an ear.

"Rose, Doctor," Donna nodded to each of them before a Torchwood private escorted her from Hanger one.

It had been late for Donna, it would be later for the Doctor and Rose. Rose needed to check in with the Tower personnel who had been monitoring the Teelomere vessel, the Doctor offered to contact the Shadow Directive while she did.

Four am saw them arriving back at the flat, changing into pjs and the Doctor tiptoeing over to Rose's room to peer at her questioningly from the doorway. Running a hand through her hair, Rose looked at him with playful weariness before beckoning him in with a nod of her head. He dove under the covers and snuggled up behind Rose, both of them shifting until satisfied they were pressed as tightly together as they could be.

The cat Rose and Jackie had had at their flat back in their universe used to sit beside Rose's pillow and paw at her face. It was gentle but annoying enough to keep her from sleeping. What the Doctor was doing felt much the same way. Mentally, he was vibrating and whether he knew it or not was reaching out to his closest psychic link with playful swats in his excitement.

"Stop it," Rose slurred and mentally swatted him back to emphasize the behaviour she wished would cease.

"Sorry," came the Doctor's much more alert reply.

20 minutes later, she was almost asleep when he started humming in his mind.

"Doctor!" She turned and faced him in full Tyler fury, "if ya can't sleep get up and do somethin' besides get on at me, will ya?"

"Sorry," the Doctor said again though this time with more trepidation, "I'm just so excited she's here and..." he didn't finish his thought verbally but Rose heard the end in her mind clear as day, _you're the only one who could possibly understand what that means to me_.

Rose sighed and flopped her head down on the pillow, her face an inch from his. She reached up a hand to stroke his cheek, "I know." She let that hang in the air a moment, her thumb caressing the line where his stubble gave way to smooth skin, before she added, "I just don't want to kill you in a semi-conscious, sleep deprived fit of insanity." She saw the Doctor's teeth, blue in the faint light of her bedroom, flash in a grin. "I'm kinda fond of you, s'all."

A flood of warmth emanated from the Doctor's mind to Rose at that and he pulled her close once more, allowing her to burrow her face into his chest and drift off.

-#-

Rose was having an anxiety dream. She stood before a host of Syxorax on their ship knowing the Doctor was a different man and unconscious in the Tardis behind her to boot. Trying words she knew he had used, she stumbled weakly over a half-threat, half-demand that they leave the earth alone. The Sycorax she was addressing had dismissed her and was raising its whip to execute her when the Doctor spoke.

"I didn't ask for a temp," he said questioningly.

Gasping awake, Rose looked blinking about the room before her eyes fell on the Doctor who was frowning at her. Suddenly she understood that the anxiety she had felt was filtering in from his mind. "What?" She asked him, equal parts anger, frustration and confusion.

The Doctor sat up to face her, his hair still infuriatingly well coiffed. "I didn't ask for a temp. Why did the agency send Donna? And to me specifically?" His unease was reaching a fevered pitch though he looked calm.

Rose sighed a deep sigh and picked up her comm from the beside table. 8:32 am.

"What if timelines are converging on this universe's Donna? What if we're experiencing a temporal flashback that's taken months to..."

As the Doctor carried on, Rose exchanged her comm for her mobile and dialled a number, the Doctor oblivious to her.

"Yeah, number for Bedford Temp Agency please," she said with forced wakefulness gained after far too many lost nights of sleep with Torchwood.

The Doctor's panicky verbal thought process slowed after "Dalek plan to..." as he watched Rose dial another number.

"Hi, I'm from TW Industries. We recently hired one of your temps and I needed to know which department made the request." Rose sounded exceedingly cheery and the Doctor cocked a brow at her. "Thank you," Rose chirped into the phone before the smile dropped from her face and she handed the phone to the Doctor.

"Right," he said, placing the phone to his ear and hearing hold music, "best place to start." He watched as Rose fell back against the pillows, puzzled at her lack of concern over the possibility of Daleks masterminding another coup similar to the one they had already thwarted months ago at great cost.

"Records," a bored voice said in the Doctor's ear.

"Hi," the Doctor began, "em, I need information on Donna Noble." A pause. "N-O-B-L-E." Another pause. "Yeah, I just need to know who from...TW Industries...um, requested her." After a beat, the Doctor's eyes dropped to Rose who, smiling ever so softly, had cracked an eye at him. "Rose Tyler...right. No! Things are fine with Donna!" He hastened to add to the receiver. "Yeah, we'll be keeping her, thanks."

Hanging up, the Doctor could only stare at Rose for a minute, his anxiety abating to mental silence. Into that silence, Rose said, "been monitoring her for a while, y'know, makin' sure she wasn't some kinda weirdo in this universe."

In his mind, the Doctor saw what Rose really meant by that statement, that she was making sure this Donna wasn't capable of hurting him in some way like this universe's Pete had been.

Then Rose felt his heart break with thankfulness as he dove at her, wriggled his arms about her and without thought on either of their parts, crushed his lips against hers.

Abruptly he pulled back, shocked at himself, his face an inch from Rose's. They were very much aware of every point of contact their bodies made, of which there were many. The Doctor was atop her, their legs tangled, his arms about her back, her hands gently pressed to his ribs.

It was the Doctor who was uncertain, knowing what he wanted and overwhelmed by it, how much more visceral a feeling it was now than it had ever been when he was purely Time Lord. Sensing that, Rose tangled her hands gently in his hair and brought his forehead to press against hers, their eyes closed. Stronger than the background noise of their ape bodies screaming out for some release, the bond they had formed let what each felt flow to the other.

Neither could have said what prevented them from repeating the kiss and following where it led.

Eventually they smiled, their cheeks brushing one another's as they did so and the Doctor lifted himself. "I'm gonna go and...take a shower," _a cold shower_ , Rose heard him add in his mind as he left the room. She rolled over and smiled into her pillow.


	7. The Right to Silence, the Trust to Speak

Hey folks, thank you for the reviews! It's nice to know my characterisation of Rose as a badass is appreciated.

A few of you seem to be concerned with the fact that they're not just shagging each other's brains out. While I'm a fan of pointless smut, it didn't seem to work in the context of the story as it evolved. In my mind, Rose and the Doc have a lot on their plates, more than the story gives away at this point, and they're both tentative about adding to the mix with anything physical. That being said, this story is rated M for more than just swearing.

Last but not least, I frigging love Donna, glad to see others do too.

-#-

Donna picked up most of what the Doctor threw at her with the added benefit that she did exactly what Rose had hoped she would: re-humanize the Doctor to the rest of the staff. Those who were immune to her charms she intimidated far more consistently than Bad Wolf was capable. Donna couldn't put her finger on why but she felt protective of the Doctor who seemed likewise towards her. She had blushingly admitted that she was a temp to some of the Techs from their floor one lunch, at which point the Doctor informed them that Donna had been hand picked by Bad Wolf. The Techs had looked at her with awe but it was the way the Doctor looked at her that stuck with Donna. She was partly convinced, and it changed with the situation, that he was sweet on her, he was gay or he was in love with Rose Tyler.

Whatever his feelings, Donna figured she could handle him. He may not have been harmless, but he certainly wasn't malicious. She dragged him out for drinks with their co-workers and he took her out in the Rdis, more often than not accompanied by Rose.

-#-

"What else are you going to get up to then?"

"What? Like I don't have a life? Could go for jaunt in the Rdis-"

"You totally just thought about watching the Lion King again, you _liar_! How many times is that, forty?"

"Helluva a lot more entertaining than a stuffy UNIT function."

" _Please_ ," Rose finally begged.

It was the look in her eyes when she said this that cracked him. "Oh, all right," he groaned and Rose hugged his arm. They were in the hammock hanging outside the Rdis doors as the ship hovered over the Menzel 3 Nebula, otherwise known as the Ant Nebula.

"But I'm inviting Donna. You never have as much time at these things as you think you will," he groused. He had been recruited to be her 'date' for previous functions and usually spent most of the time talking to Jackie if she was in attendance, which wasn't terrible all things considered, or puffed up diplomats who thought their opinions on alien contact were more valid than anyone else's.

"She would love it anyway, chance t'sink her teeth into an eligible bachelor," Rose said, cheek rested contentedly against the Doctor's shoulder.

The Doctor looked chuffed, "oh, thank you."

"Not you, ya git, some UNIT blokes'll be there," Rose clarified before laughing at him and he recommenced looking sour.

"Am I not _eligible_ then?" He asked, looking down at Rose's dancing amber eyes.

"Sure you are," she said warmly, "but Donna doesn't fancy ya."

Sniffing, the Doctor shrugged, mollified. "Fair point."

They looked at the nebula as they slowly spun around it, the Doctor thinking the Mitotic Nebula might've been a more fitting name for it.

"Who is it you plan on beating up at this thing?" The Doctor asked, resting his cheek against Rose's crown.

"German Ambassador," Rose answered without missing a beat, "Russian too if they'll let me get that close to him again."

"What'd you do to him last time?" The Doctor asked, suddenly remembering rumours about unauthorised drinking games gone awry.

"I didn't do anything t'him," Rose protested at once, "Churkin likes to exaggerate, he does. I would never use my blaster for any thing like that," she said with a straight face as the Doctor grinned at her.

They burst out laughing. The Rdis spun around a nebula that some said looked like an ant.

-#-

He knocked, not because knocking was a thing he generally did but because he respected the fact that Rose had an image to maintain at Torchwood. He was a man and if he started stepping on her boundaries, others would start testing them too, he knew, and he didn't like the thought.

"Come in."

He poked his head in and entered when she looked up from her computer, smiled at him in pleased recognition. "Here's trouble."

The Doctor sat on her desk next to her and looked at her computer. "New Helios design?"

"Mmm, M'not sold on the air recycling," Rose frowned at the blue prints on her screen.

"Beth worked on those, didn't she? I thought they were fine, better than fine" he commented, slipping out his glasses and leaning over Rose's shoulder.

"Adapted from Golt tech, though. They're efficient but they were never meant for such a high oxygen content, m'worried they'll oxidise the micro feeds, clog 'em." Rose had her chin in her hands, was worrying at her pinky with her teeth.

"Oh, you are brilliant," the Doctor murmured and she smiled up at him.

"Ready to go then?" Rose looked at the watch on her comm.

"Nah, going down to the pub with Donna and Peter, few others from good ol' Tech two. You want to come with?" He asked, slipping his hands into his pockets.

Standing, avoiding his eyes artfully, Rose went to one of the numerous filing cabinets in her office and began pulling out various files, inspecting their contents. "No thanks, but have fun, yeah?"

The Doctor eyed her back, probed gently at her mind enough to note a twinge of discomfort there. "You never want to come to the pub," he observed.

"You know I like to keep it professional b'tween me n'the staff," Rose evaded.

"I'd like it if you came," the Doctor added after a beat, quickly looking at his plimsolls as Rose looked aside at him.

Plucking out a file, Rose closed the cabinet drawer and walked to the Doctor. He was forced to meet her eyes when her sneaker clad feet stood toe to toe with his. "I used to go to the pub w'Mickey, like, every night when I first got here. Watch the match, have a bite," she searched the Doctor's eyes for recognition that he understood.

Looking over his shoulder to double check he had closed the door, the Doctor stood and wrapped his arms around Rose. "I'll see you later," he whispered.

"Not home late then?" She asked.

"No," he replied, "not tonight."

-#-

The Doctor and Donna returned to the table with the first round and some chips as half of its occupants were doubled over with laughter.

"What's this then?" Donna asked, squeezing in after the Doctor.

"Param had it from his friend in personnel that Roy Healy was gonna ask Bad Wolf out," one of the Techs rushed to inform them as the others clinked their glasses with the Doctor's in thanks.

"She's gonna eat him alive," Donna said in all seriousness before joining in on another round of laughter.

"Which one's Healy?" The Doctor asked, through a mouthful of chips.

"Big bloke in personnel, he's a private. Got a tattoo of a cross on the back of his neck..." Peter supplied before blushing at the questioning look some of the techs threw him. "A-apparently, apparently he has a tattoo."

More titters followed this as the Doctor shrugged. "Don't know him."

"Nor me," Donna seconded, playing with the umbrella in her drink before taking a sip.

"Well, he's young enough for her," another tech added, "fit enough too!" She laughed as she and her neighbour fanned themselves.

"Young enough? How old is Bad Wolf?" Peter threw this question out but his eyes settled on the Doctor. "D'you know John?"

Squinting at Peter, the Doctor hesitated. "Um...Uh..."

"You don't know how old she is?" Donna looked at him incredulously. "Sod of a friend you are." She smacked him and he recoiled.

"What? Time is fluid...she's...older than her years, I'll tell you that," he managed finally, stealing the chip Donna held and popping it whole into his mouth.

"You're not upset, then, John?" Peter asked with forced casualness, eyes cycling from the match on the telly above the bar to the Doctor.

"No, she beats me all the time," The Doctor said.

"Oi!" Crowed Donna who smacked him again.

"OI!" Growled the Doctor back at her.

"Nah, Peter's talking about Bad Wolf, innit he?" The tech who had first spoken clarified, raising a brow at Peter who blushed and focused on the match intently. "Danni had it from Simon on Boring three that she kissed you a few weeks back, mate." She settled her chin on her hand and looked at the Doctor with pursed lips. "Mmm?"

The Doctor looked around at the techs, frowning in discomfort, his jaw hanging open as he searched for some kind of response. "Wh...I...That was really just her proving a point," he finally managed, somewhat lamely.

"Never seen her prove a point to someone like that before," one of the others techs said with raised brows as they quaffed their beer.

" _Any_ way," the Doctor said, nudging Donna aside with his shoulder, "who's up for a game of snooker, eh?"

"You always win, mate!" One of the techs griped.

" _That_ is because you lack a fundamental appreciation of geometry!" The Doctor called over his shoulder as he selected a cue and chalked it, Donna and Peter close behind.

Chalking his own cue, Peter did his best to make his next comment sound off hand. "So you and Bad Wolf..." He looked at his shoes, "you're just friends then?"

Donna smirked at him for this but the Doctor eyed Peter with more focus than the young man felt he'd ever received from him. Peter looked at his shoes again.

Something about the 'just' in Peter's question made a lion roar in the Doctor's chest. The woman Peter spoke of was not _just_ anything, not in any sense of the word, least of all _just_ anything to him.

"Rose and I are...we're...we just are." How else could he put it? English was a language he enjoyed but not for it's clarity, not for its ability to roundly describe the intricate details of complex things and most things, the Doctor had found, were complex enough to be beyond the language's reach.

Irked, the Doctor racked the balls and indicated that Donna should have first crack. He sat on the table next to her and said, as she was sighting down her cue, "d'you want to go to that UNIT thingy next week?"

Donna frowned and stood to face him. "W'you?"

"Yeah," the Doctor said.

"Whot, like a date, like I'd be your date?" She gestured between them and eyed him suspiciously.

"Yeah. Or I'd be yours, however you want to put it, egalitarianism an' all that."

"Oi, you two! Are we playing or what?" Peter asked from the other end of the table.

"Keep your knickers on, Turtle," Donna said, bending down to attend to her shot again. "Thought you'd be going with Rose, you know, as her _date_ " she said to the Doctor.

The Doctor scanned the table keenly, assessing the angles of the balls, "Oh, I am but I need a date 'cause she's never around at these things. Always off roughing up Russian diplomats." Donna laughed at him and he smiled as he took aim. "She said to mention there would be a lot of fit gentlemen there."

Raising an intrigued brow, Donna considered the Doctor while he grinned at her cajolingly.

-#-

Canary Wharf had a hotel right on the Thames, overlooking the wide swath of river and a stones throw from the Tower. Torchwood personnel crawled through every inch of it, stationed at every door.

"Are you wearin' chucks w'your suit?" Donna asked as they passed a checkpoint in which scanners were run over them.

"They're my fancy chucks," he beamed at her and the fella scanning him, neither of whom seemed to appreciate his taste in fashion. "Rose thinks they're dapper..." He muttered.

"What about Rose?" Donna had the presence of mind to ask as they approached the personnel at the doors of the hotel proper. They were the third set of armed personnel they had met so far.

"What about her?" The Doctor asked as he raised his comm to have it scanned by the black garbed private.

"Well she's your date," Donna scolded him, "proper men escort their dates." She huffed opinionatedly and the Doctor rolled his eyes.

"She's been here for hours already! What was I supposed to do? Follow her around? Make nice with the serving staff?"

They continued bickering as they were let through the proper host station, their names checked off on a register. Donna eventually stopped when she took a glass of wine from the tray of one of the cute aforementioned serving staff, her eyes following him as he made his way through the crowd.

"You have to admit, s'kinda nice it bein' so posh," Donna said, her eyes alight as she scanned the main ballroom. They had arrived at a time Donna had described to the Doctor as fashionably late and the room was full of mingling officials, their murmur a serious din that required them to raise their voices just to be heard.

Smiling aside at Donna wryly, he was thankful she was atleast enjoying herself. It was a firm belief of his that when you knew something would be droll, find someone who would enjoy it and bring them along. He had been practising the trick for the last 700 years of his life, easily.

The Doctor personally was more interested in the full show of Torchwood personnel, their black uniforms dotting the perimeter every eight feet, looking as dour as any Buckingham palace guard. As he was scanning the room, counting, his eyes fell on Rose.

Noting her friends pleasantly awestruck face, Donna followed the Doctor's line of sight and she had to nod once she hit her destination. "She looks gorgeous."

"Yeah," the Doctor whispered, slipping his hands into his pockets.

She wore a simple black strapless dress upon which minimal lines of fabric draped, resembling a black sheet that hugged her curves. Her golden hair shone where it hung about her shoulders, her usual hoop earrings peaking out through it. Other than that, her only ornament was a thin silver band on her right index finger, a gift from her mother, the Doctor knew, that she rarely took off.

Donna smirked, looked around the crowd a minute, returned her attention to the Doctor to find him still staring at Rose as she moved through the crowd. Nudging him, Donna whispered, "go on, go ask her to dance."

The Doctor snapped his face to Donna's, his reverie broken. "What?" He loved the look in his friend's face then, so familiar, full of so much kindness. He had always loved her heart.

"She is your date. Go dance with her, look, she's lookin' over here," Donna nodded over his shoulder.

The Doctor looked back at Rose and received her version of the smile Donna had just given him, all warmth, showing off her high cheekbones. Touching Donna lightly on the elbow, the Doctor slowly wended his way through the throng, periodically losing and gaining sight of Rose as people crossed his vision.

He was feet away from her when a tall man with black hair, sporting proper dress shoes buffed to a high sheen, stepped up to Rose.

"Hello," the man said to Rose.

"Henry!" Rose exclaimed, tucking her hair behind her ear, the only nervous gesture she had retained from her youth. "What're you doin' here?" She asked, frowning at him.

The Doctor couldn't hear what was passing between them but he watched their movements as he scratched the back of his head. He screwed up his face when he saw the man grab at Rose's elbow in the possessive way he found earth men tended to. He looked away with a raised brow when Rose stepped toward the man, just a fraction of an inch.

"I'm here with UNIT," Henry replied, smiling his singly dimpled smile at her.

"Right, you work with UNIT now," Rose processed.

Henry nodded at her and grinned, "Yes and you never did."

Rose didn't bother to look sheepish at being found out. "No, never did." Over Henry's shoulder, Rose saw the Doctor retreating back to Donna.

They looked one another over for a moment before Henry brought her closer with a hand on her elbow. "Care to dance?"

"Yeah," Rose said after a minute. "I'd like that."

-#-

"Sorry," Donna stood on tiptoe to say into the Doctor's ear.

Shrugging, he reached out a hand to her and waggled his fingers. "What d'ya say, Miss Noble? How about a dance?"

"Why, Mister Smith, I thought you'd never ask," she grinned at him, taking his proffered hand and letting out a peal of laughter when he whipped her forward to the dance floor.

"I'm impressed, thought you'd have two left feet," Donna laughed as the Doctor led her around the room.

"I do remember a few moves," he said, looking pleased with himself and more pleased at Donna's laugh. The two of them had slipped into familiar patterns of bickering, questioning and occasional moments of tenderness, the stuff best mates were made of. With Rose working on the upper floors of the Tower all the time, the Doctor had had no one around who really marvelled at all the magic about them. The techs were concerned, fascinated and clinical. Not Donna. She would exclaim loudly at the simplest most beautiful things, see the life behind the samples in Bio and the Doctor loved her for that.

He grinned stupidly at her and Donna only hugged him a bit closer. His eyes occasionally drifted up to see that Rose and her partner were pressed tight to one another.

Across the room, Rose moved with Henry like they were a second satellite orbiting the same centre that the Doctor and Donna were.  
"I really enjoyed our time together in New York," Henry said to Rose.

"And me," she replied noncommittally. They had dispensed of small talk relatively quickly and Henry didn't seem overly interested in discussing the reason they were both actually there.

The song ended and Rose saw the Doctor bow to Donna, caught the other woman's laughter in the din as he did so. Henry pulled her close as the next song started and leaned down to whisper in her ear, "I would love to see more of you while I'm here."

The Doctor saw Henry bend to Rose and he smiled for her, accepted the drink Donna had procured for him and they cheersed one another.

Rose looked Henry in the eye with a directness most men found unsettling but he didn't flinch. There really were a lot of things to recommend him. "Henry-" she began but her comm burst to life at that instant and she leaned forward to listen to it where it sat on her wrist resting atop his shoulder.

" **Bad Wolf, this is the Tower. We've got an unidentified just outside shallow space. They're not entering yet and we can't hail them.** "

"Trajectory?" she asked.

" **They're set to go well wide of us, Bad Wolf. I just wanted to keep you appraised.** "

"Thanks Tower," Rose replied and looked back up to Henry. "Can you...hold that thought?"

He smiled and stepped slightly back from her, his arms releasing her. "Consider it held along with the next dance."

Rose thanked him and walked as quickly from the room as she could without causing suspicion. The Doctor and Donna watched her go.

"Oh Donna, I think we're going to get lucky tonight," he smirked before sipping at his drink.

"How's that then? With you hanging off of me I'm not gettin' half the attention I could," she shook her head and watched her cute server walk by. The Doctor opened his mouth to reply then quickly shut it and shook is head with a sigh. He wasn't disappointed when Rose returned in her black leather jacket, jeans and trainers and began circling the perimeter, talking to her personnel one at a time.

The hairs on the back of the Doctor's neck stood on end. Rose was jeopardy friendly, drew danger out of situations as if by capillary action. His boring night was looking up.

Of course, it happened when the floor cleared for the sectary general of the UN to speak. He was about to step into the middle when a blinding violet light flashed and they were suddenly faced with a creature about a head taller than the tallest person there. A shag of orange fur ran down from the top of it's head to the tip of it's six foot tail. It stood back on two feet but it's hands hung giving the impression that it could run on all fours quite nimbly. Its pointed snout looked like a dog's but it's eyes were not feral; it looked about at the people intelligently. Needless to say, everyone screamed.

"Personnel! Advance and cover!" Rose hollered and the personnel that had lined the walls pushed inside the circle the guests had formed to surround the intruder, their blasters raised to their shoulders. "Doctor?" She questioned, her own pistol levelled at the beast.

Hands in his pockets, the Doctor stepped into the circle of blasters nonchalantly. " _OH_! You are _gorgeous_!" He fawned, eyes meeting the alien's.

" _Doctor_ ," Rose urged.

Keeping his eyes on the creature's, the Doctor replied. "It's a Charfax, they're very peaceful, no need for the guns."

"Set weapons to stun," Rose ordered and the blasters hummed in unison. She started to slowly move about the perimeter of the circle, blaster lowered, to reach the Doctor. "Can you talk to it?

The creature had inched toward the Doctor, it's eyes still locked with his as though hypnotised, the Doctor grinning at it. "Nah, it's prelanguage, just a baby. Aren't you?" He asked it in a voice most people would have reserved for creatures much smaller and cuter than the beast that stood before him.

It all happened in a split second. The creature reached out a hand and enclosed the Doctor's chest in it's two long taloned fingers and thumb. It brought him to its mouth as Rose bellowed, "Hold!" at the personnel and it dragged a rough red tongue up the length of the Doctor's chest and face.

"Agh!" The Doctor said in shock before wiping his free hand over his face, "caustic, caustic!" He squirmed.

From the crowd, a woman stepped forward and levelled a pocket blaster at the creature, fired two shots before the personnel could react. Everyone ducked and screamed again as the woman was wrestled to the ground on Rose's orders.

Rushing to the beast's side as the Doctor extricated himself from it's grip, Rose surveyed the two gaping holes in its chest, looking like caked lava from the charring. The creature writhed and howled as she drove her hand into the crater closest to the centre of its chest and applied pressure to an area where a thick blue blood was pulsing out.

"Donna! Get the homeostabiliser!" The Doctor called over his shoulder and his friend ran from the room. Grimacing, he reached in to the other wound and likewise tried to staunch the blood flow.

Rose looked aside at him, panting. "Will the homeostabiliser work?" She was referring to the species specificity of it. There was always the chance the med tech they studied could kill as easy as heal, depending on the biological differences between the species that created it and whoever attempted to use it.

"No other choice," the Doctor said through gritted teeth, likewise breathing fast, "whatever that was did enough damage that we can't help it. It's best chance is us stabilising it and getting it back to its ship. But where did it come from?" He asked aloud, agitated at the unknown factor.

"There's a ship in shallow orbit," Rose supplied, her other hand roaming about the creature's chest in a search for its pulse. She looked aside when the Doctor snapped his face toward hers at that news, his eyes wide and wild.

"How big is it?" He breathed.

Rose looked at him a second before craning her neck to look over her shoulder. "Carey, get on with the Tower, ask for a class on the ship they're monitoring."

They returned their attention to the creature before them as Carey talked into his comm, noting that it was struggling less, getting weaker.

The room was fast emptying as Torchwood personnel escorted the guests out. UNIT and Torchwood top brass were soon the only people remaining. Donna ran through their thinning numbers with the case that contained the homeostabiliser. Panting under its weight, she deposited it next to the Doctor.

He cracked the case, fumbling with hands slick with the creature's blood, and began hooking up wires to vital points he identified with his sonic. "Donna, hold its hand," he said as he did this.

"What?" She asked quietly from where she knelt next to him.

His eyes flashed at her. "It's a child. It's dying. Hold its hand!" He ordered her fiercely.

Eyes drawn to the wound into which Rose's arm was sunk elbow deep, Donna scuttled around the creature's head to its other side, finally seeing its eyes as she did. She picked up its massive hand and saw recognition in the sliver of its eye as it turned its head toward her.

"S'okay, sweetheart. The Doctor's got you. S'okay," she kept repeating, lip trembling as tears stung at her eyes.

"Bad Wolf, Tower estimates the ship to be about the size of our Menchel class airships," Carey said as he took a knee next to Rose.

Twiddling with dials on the homeostabiliser, the Doctor asked over his shoulder, "Rose, how big are our Menchel class ships?"

Her second hand having replaced the Doctor's so he could work, Rose was literally up to her elbows in the creature. "Uh, 'bout 240 meters long, um, 40 at the beam." She refrained from telling him the creature was fast slipping from life. She knew she didn't have to.

"Oooookay," the Doctor soniced the homeostabiliser, threw himself on the creature to sonic various parts of it. "So we've got, erm, about, um, say, 'thousand Charfax up there?" He calculated.

"You said they were peaceful," Rose growled, furious at the feeling of the Charfax's life slipping through her fingers.

Stilling, the Doctor knelt with his hands atop the display for the homeostabiliser and breathed deeply. "Yeah," he said eventually and Rose looked over her shoulder at the defeated note in the word. "So are you. See how peaceful you are if Tony wanders into someone's house and they shoot him." He said dejectedly. Standing, he walked to the creature's head and knelt by it. "I'm sorry," he said softly, a hand on its brow, "I'm so sorry."

Donna cried soundlessly. While it still had life, the Charfax had returned her grip, flexing its massive talons around both of her hands. She had to lower its hand as it grew weaker, not strong enough to hold the weight of it, and now her hands rested in its palm with no sign that it felt them there.

Chest heaving, Rose had to swallow the rage that wanted to break from her chest into her mouth and out. Her hands still gripped the Charfax's innards but she had known before the Doctor's apology to it that it was gone. This wasn't the first life she had failed to preserve. Eventually, she extricated her self and tucked her hair back, smearing it with blue-black blood.

Hers and the Doctor's eyes met, both hard with anger and the knowledge that so many more lives hung in the balance still.

"Tower's got a ship overhead," Pete said as he stepped between them and knelt down. "Give me scenarios," he said gravely to the Doctor and Rose. Rose nodded in the Doctor's direction. She hadn't encountered the Charfax before and her vast knowledge of alien species didn't extend to them. They were, like the Teelomere, visitors from the farthest flung reaches of the universe relative to the earth.

"Uhm, they realise one of their children is missing, track its transmat pattern here and, upon finding no sign of its biorhythms, lay bloody waste to this planet with plasma cannons." The Doctor said as though describing how an interesting bit of tech worked. Pete rubbed his face.

"Did you get the shielding for Omnion finished?" Rose asked the Doctor quietly and steeled herself against the disgust she felt emanate from him.

"You want to blast them out of the sky without warning?" He asked her through clenched teeth.

"I want to try returning their kid by the rite of Uhl Mata first," she said and felt the Doctor draw up short, "but yeah, if that doesn't work, m'going to sacrifice one thousand of them for the human race."

The Doctor's features were still stony but she felt his reaction to her plan. Pride that she could be be so clever and so compassionate drawing out the warmth she had come to expect to feel from him, that unnameable emotion they seemed to evoke in one another.

" _Uhl Mata_?" Pete asked, frowning at his not-daughter.

"Yeah," Rose said, snapping into Bad Wolf character as she looked aside at her personnel. "I need a blanket or a sheet, has to be blue, and rope, 'bout...eight meters of it." She brought her her comm to her lips. "Tower this is Bad Wolf, power up a long range transmat terminating on that ship."

" **Yes Bad Wolf. How many?** "

Rose caught the Doctor's eye and he gave her the slightest nod. "Two plus cargo," she replied into her comm. "And fire up Omnion. Make sure the shielding is up."

" **Consider it Done**."

One of the personnel returned with the rope and Rose took it along with the knife from his belt and began cutting it into pieces. The blanket was brought and the Doctor laid it out next to the Charfax. Stuffing the knife into her belt, Rose knelt by the body and ordered her personnel to help them lift it. They placed it on the blanket in a couple of concerted heaves and Rose and the Doctor hefted the Charfax's tail between them and laid it alongside the body. They set to work wrapping the Charfax as UNIT and Torchwood personnel alike watched in silence.

"What're you gonna do?" Donna asked quietly in the hush, kneeling next to the Doctor as he knotted rope about the creature's neck, securing the blanket around it.

He didn't look up from his task as he answered her, spouting off words as though he were an encyclopedia. "The universe has always had conflicts going on. At any given time there are probably a thousand intergalactic breaches of the peace, some five hundred full scale wars. It was decided by the oldest races a long time ago, Time Lords, the Eternals and the like, that there should be rights of war by which conflicts could be settled with minimal blood shed." He shifted around the Charfax on the balls of his feet, busied himself joining its elbows with a length of rope so its hands would stay crossed over its chest. Donna followed, sticking close to his side. "One of those rights is that of Uhl Mata, whereby a planet that has wrongly slain alien visitors may return them to their people, observe a strict ritual and be spared retribution." The Doctor finished, putting one end of the rope in his mouth as he wove the other through the Charfax's limbs.

Donna looked at her friend searchingly. "You're gonna bring it back to them?" She almost whispered.

"Yeah," the Doctor confirmed, still focused on his task. Rose, busy at the feet, looked up at him, then at Donna. She prodded the Doctor mentally and he looked at her sharply before she nodded at Donna.

Looking aside at his friend, the Doctor stamped down familiar feelings of guilt and sadness.

"But whot if it doesn't work?" Donna asked, a new ache joining that she already felt for the dead alien child.

"They'll kill us," the Doctor said, his attention fully on his friend now. "And they'll obliterate the Earth, which!" He turned abruptly from her and looked at Pete, "is why Omnion has to be online! If we haven't returned in under a half hour..." He left the statement hanging and Pete nodded at him.

At a mental kick from Rose, the Doctor looked back at Donna.

"But you can't," she whispered, tears pooling in her eyes. "I might never see you again." She didn't question why the thought of never again seeing this man she had known barely a month wounded her so.

The Doctor gave her the smile he smiled with half his mouth and none of his eyes, a gesture of farewell. "That's always a possibility with me," he whispered and she began sobbing in earnest. Crushing her to his chest, the Doctor looked at Rose and for a minute he was so connected to the two living people he cared for most in the multiverse.

"Get the server's name," he joked to Donna as he stepped back from her. She only brought her hand to her mouth to stop the sound of her grief from escaping, her green eyes fogged with tears.

The Doctor swallowed and turned his back on her, took two steps and the hand that Rose raised to him from where she was crouched at the Charfax's feet. Looking significantly at Pete, Rose asked the Tower to initiate the transmat. The Doctor squeezed her hand, her not-father nodded his head at her silent request and her comm crackled.

The hotel ballroom blinked out of existence.

They found themselves suddenly in the midst of what looked like a forest at night. The night was just space and stars. The forest was part of the Charfax ship and the Doctor had the sudden sickening realisation as he looked around that this was a pleasure vessel. The forty or so Charfax that surrounded them were on vacation. They were families.

Rose still knelt by the body, the Doctor's hand in hers. She squeezed. He cleared his throat, squeezed back, then let her hand drop. Then he began speaking, long rasping words, and signing with his hands at the same time. Rose suspected he may have had to repeat himself a few times.

The Charfax were shocked first by their arrival and then by the realisation of what they carried with them. Some of the adults, about twice the size of the child, began lashing out with broad gestures and yelling in their language while others held them back.

Soon the crowd parted and quieted, letting through a Charfax with a red disc inscribed with symbols affixed to its shoulder. Behind it followed four more and all noise in the forest died. These four circled the Doctor, Rose and the body, sniffing, eyeing the body, making low guttural noises.

It was to the Charfax distinguished by the red disc that the Doctor spoke, gesturing as he did so, his hands indicating the body often. After a while, the Charfax replied shortly then looked at one of the four that circled them. It broke from the perimeter and approached the Doctor, eyed him intensely with bright green eyes, sniffed once. Then the creature's face snapped to regard Rose and with the same speed the child had shown, its hand shot out and dragged Rose to the body's side as it settled across from her.

Rose understood fury in the eyes of the Charfax that looked at her over the body. She didn't flinch. She hoped it could read regret in her in kind. The creature broke eye contact to lay its hands on the body, to look at the face. All Rose could do was wait.

When the creature looked back to Rose, she slipped the knife out from her belt, gripped it firmly and held the tip of the four inch blade to her chest. The Doctor spoke from behind her, the only bit of the Charfax language she could hope to fathom, and initiated the right by offering her death in retribution for the child's. She was too focused on the creature before her to appreciate how the Doctor's fear for her was swelling like a flood in her mind.

The Charfax across from Rose brought its talons toward the butt of the knife with surprising delicacy, touched it gently, eyes searching Rose as it did so. It had the option to take her life and Rose could only wonder, if someone had taken her mother or her brother from her, what choice she would make. With a quick flick, the creature brought one of its talons along the edge of Rose's jaw, making its choice too fast for her to react before she felt the warmth of her own blood soaking her shirt collar. More words from the Doctor and Rose knew to lean over the body, to bring the offered instrument of death, the knife, with force along the Charfax's jaw in kind, more blue blood staining her hands.

That was it. Or that should have been it. Blood for blood, no one even lost an eye. But with none of her personnel around, Rose leaned down and pressed her lips against the child's snout. "M'sorry," she whispered to it. The crowd rustled and hissed but Rose looked at the Charfax she had cut as she stood and knew they were free to go. Whether it understood her remorse she would never know and the right left Rose feeling they hadn't done enough.

The Doctor asked the Tower to bring them back and they arrived unable to look at anyone though all eyes were on them. No one moved until Rose and Pete's comms announced that the Charfax ship was heading out to deep space. Heavy sighs were heaved, people shook hands and two of Rose's personnel stepped toward her with medic kits, concern write clear on their faces. She shook her head at them and turned to the Doctor.

Frowning at her, the Doctor slipped his sonic screwdriver from inside his jacket and flicked it a few times, looking for the right setting.

"Leave a scar if y'can," Rose requested and he nodded at her, brought the instrument to the sheared flesh on her jaw, steadied her with his other hand on the back of her neck. When he was done, he gently ran his sleeve over the wound. Beneath the smear of red and blue blood, sure enough, was a thin dark line.

He pocketed the sonic and they faced the room. Pete was already firing orders into his comm. Rose asked her personnel where the shooter was. The Doctor looked around until he found Donna in a doorway, hugging herself and watching him.

Smiling at her as he approached, the Doctor saw fresh tears start to trail down Donna's cheeks. Once more he hugged her and she gripped him back for all her life was worth. "You're the only person who thinks I'm anything special," she whispered so quietly, with her face so tightly to his chest that the Doctor almost couldn't make out what she said.

"Well then," he said, rocking her gently, "people need to start paying better attention to you." When she tried to laugh and cried instead he held her tighter and wished he could tell her everything she was capable of, everything she had done for him and the world, all the ways she was so brilliant. Instead he said nothing like he nearly always did and hoped the hug said the things he couldn't, the things she needed to hear.

-#-

Absolutely filthy with blood and rancid with sweat, Rose and the Doctor walked into cells and looked at the woman who had shot the Charfax. The Doctor slipped his hands into his pockets and regarded her with ancient eyes. Rose crossed her arms.

"I'm not sorry I did it," the woman said to their silence. "You should be thanking me for saving your life," she added to the Doctor. He raised a brow at her.

"If it were up t'me," Rose began evenly, "I'd have ya for smuggling a class k weapon into a restricted, joint UNIT-Torchwood function, for endangering the lives of everyone on the planet and I'd have you sent to prison for couple'a decades."

The woman grinned, sickeningly pleased with herself. "But it isn't up to you, is it? President Jones has given Britain some of the most lax blaster controls in the developed world. Situations like this are exactly what she had in mind when she did."

Rose leaned on the bars and grinned right back, the Bad Wolf bristling in her every feature. "It isn't up to me, an' it sure as hell isn't up to Harriet Jones. The UN passed a resolution weeks back allowing for extradition b'tween earth and a few thousand planets in our little corner of the universe."

The woman stopped smiling.

"Doctor? Do you happen to know if the Charfax signed on to that treaty?" Rose kept looking at the shooter as the Doctor spoke from behind her.

"They're one of the founding peoples of the Shadow Directive. I'd wager they signed it."

"But lucky you!" Rose yelled, making the woman jump. "The Doctor and I fixed things with the Charfax so they won't want anything with ya, will they Doctor?" She turned about and walked back to his side.

He sniffed. "Weeell" he considered, "the right of Uhl Mata is oooold law, they'd probably need to hold an inquest into the legality of it all, make sure all the t's are crossed."

The woman stood on shaking legs and approached the bars. "They're not going to be able to take me...are they?"

"No!" the Doctor grinned at her as though she were daft for asking, rocked on his heels before stepping up to the bars. "But the Shadow Directive'll have you in their cells while they deliberate." He looked her face over as all colour drained from it. "You and all the other alien criminals," he added under his breath.

Going back to Rose, they listed off the myriad of species that could be expected to be in holding at the Shadow Directive as though it were a moderately interesting bit of trivia. The shooter's screams echoed at them down the corridor until the heavy iron door to the cells slammed shut behind them.

-#-

Three am, yet another late night. They sat, the Doctor with his back against the brick of their balcony, Rose with her back to his chest, staring out at the waxing moon. She rested her smoking arm on the knee he had drawn up beside her, taking puffs from her fag occasionally.

Reaching out, the Doctor deftly snatched the smouldering stick from her and took a pull, frowning as he did so. Then he coughed and Rose plucked it back, smiling tiredly at him as he stuck his tongue out in disgust.

They had been sitting in silence, neither able to face sleep just yet. Rose could see the cloud of the Doctor's breath on his every exhale, could just make out the feeling of two of his fingers resting incidentally against her thigh. At least, she thought she could.

"I suspect," The Doctor began, then paused, "that you could be shagging a _very_ pretty man right now."

If she hadn't been so tired, the comment might've earned him one of Rose Tyler's brilliant laughs, the kind that could tip him into a fit of giggles. Instead, she elbowed him gently and looked aside at him, at the playfulness in his brown eyes made black in the moonlight. "You offerin' then?"

That got him.

The Doctor frowned and looked up at the sky as though he couldn't remember something and Rose smirked, pulled at her smoke.

"And the hotel? Have you seen where they put those UNIT sods up? Five stars! Got fridges stocked with all the best stuff. You could have shagged him _and_ had one of those mini Toblerones-"

"Doctor," Rose said quietly. She never knew quite what she wanted to convey when she said his name like that.

"-I love those mini Toblerones-" He shut up again when Rose looked sharply aside at him. He could tell she was irritated but she couldn't read him.

Looking back out at the sky, Rose took a deep pull and rubbed at her forehead. She had no obligation to tell him about Henry, felt quite certain he wouldn't mind if she did. Maybe it was guilt, maybe it was the totality of everything she felt for him that she knew he reciprocated that made some tiny part of her afraid he would blow up. Or shut her out mentally. Or leave. Maybe it was just that they never seriously talked about sex, specifically the sex each of them was or was not having and with whom, that made this conversation something big.

Rose squeezed her eyes shut. She was bloody tired.

"Rose?" He prodded at her gently and it broke something down and before she knew what was happening it had spilled out of her.

"I fucked him."

The Doctor became very still. Rose couldn't look at him. She was breathing faster, her mouth hanging open in an attempt to find more words than that. She didn't like those she found.

"Not...six hours after I found out you were dead on the Helios...I went to his hotel with him."

Her heart hammered in her chest, blood rushed in her ears.

"Was he good?" Asked in the Doctor's normal tone of inquiry after things he had a passing interest in finding out.

She looked aside at him again and saw nothing but the face she had come to crave seeing in the morning and at night, bad skin and all. There was nothing accusatory, nothing of anger there nor even hurt.

But she knew he was a good actor. "Are you seriously asking me that?"

"Yeah," he confirmed and Rose looked away again, found the tip of her fag and the long tail of ash it held.

"It's just that," he said softly next to her ear, leaning into her back to do so in a way that made Rose's breath catch, "I needed someone after I lost you...and Martha and Donna were good to me, were good for me. I would want the same for you."

Rose's eyes drifted shut and a single tear slipped down her cheek.

"There hasn't been anyone else since I got dumped here," She said eventually. "And Henry...he was just sex."

"I'll have you know there was _no_ sex with Martha or Donna," the Doctor confessed likewise and this time Rose did laugh out loud, too tired and too relieved not to. "And, I guess, I'm also saying..." He added after a minute, "you could have more... _just sex_ ," he said quickly, "and not have to worry about telling me."

"Don't find many men I'm interested in for those purposes," she said after a moment's consideration, raising a hand to rub at his sideburn affectionately.

"Hmm," he shrugged.

"You could too, you know." She looked at him earnestly, tugging on his sideburn hairs gently.

The Doctor considered her a long time before he replied. "Weeeell, I'm kind of hung up on someone, truthfully. Hard to notice anyone else at the moment." He smiled with slight self satisfaction when he thought he saw her blush.

Rose leaned back into his chest, pulled the blanket that was draped over their legs up around her shoulders. "You know what I was thinkin'? I was thinkin'...wouldn't it be nice if I got to dance with you tonight...just one dance, for once one of these stupid functions would'a been bearable."

-#-

They never seemed to give that much thought to their relationship, Rose and the Doctor, that is if you didn't count the time the Doctor spent thinking about it very inappropriately, which he didn't on account of how he couldn't control those thoughts now that he was all... _human_. Everyone else, though, they seemed to give it plenty of thought. The Doctor was certain he got the brunt of it. He came off as affable and harmless enough while Rose was the Bad Wolf.  
So the Doctor wasn't surprised when the burly private who approached him asked what he asked once the Doctor figured out what the hell he was asking.

"Sir!" The private saluted, "request permission to speak plainly."

The Doctor looked slowly up from the table he was working at in Tech two, glasses perched atop his nose. He frowned at the saluting private. "For gods sake, no saluting and certainly don't 'sir' me. What d'ya want?" He said with irritation, though not saying what he had been tempted to which was that in his experience most of Torchwood's personnel couldn't speak anything but plainly even if they tried.

The permission he sought granted, the private no longer had procedure to stand on and he looked at a loss for words. The Doctor continued working. "Um...I...I," he stammered and the Doctor looked up at him and made an 'on with it' motion. "I want to ask Bad Wolf out...on a date...sir."

The Doctor stared at him, then narrowed his eyes at him. "What are you on about?" When the private failed to respond the Doctor looked irritated and bellowed out across Tech two, "Donna!"

His friend came running from the Shed and smiled a little too warmly at the private. "Whot it is it, skinny boy?"

"You tell me. I need you to..." translate stupid, he thought, but didn't say as he waved vaguely in the direction of the private.

Donna got the private to repeat what he'd said to her and she nodded knowingly. "Oooh, you're Healy, aren't you?" The private nodded. Donna turned to the Doctor who was back engaged in his work, "he thinks you're shaggin' Bad Wolf."

The private looked flummoxed and sputtered that he hadn't meant any such thing.

The Doctor took off his glasses, tossed them on the table and closed his eyes as he groaned. "Does Bad Wolf have some...sticker...or tattoo on some part of her anatomy that I am unaware of?" He asked no one in particular but Healy, thinking it was directed at him, sputtered some more. "Does this brand say 'property of the Doctor' on it? Hmm?" Angry, he looked at Healy finally and then strode to within an inch of his face. "Nobody owns her," he snarled at him, then stepped back to speak to the room in general. "And I'd love to see the look on her face at the very suggestion that anyone did."

He stormed off to the Shed, disgusted, though his righteous parade lost something as green goo dripped from the apparatus he carried off with him.

"Bad Wolf would chew you up and spit you out 'fore her first cuppa anyway, mate. Sorry," Donna informed Healy before following the Doctor.

Rose entered the Shed that afternoon to find the Doctor deep within its bowels. It was Donna who greeted her.

"He's broodin,'" Donna told her, twitching her head in the Doctor's general direction.

Rose tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled conspiratorially at Donna. She liked having the other woman around, someone else who understood the Doctor, could handle him if necessary. "What're you workin' on?" She noted the readings on the computer screen that Donna was looking at.

"Moss phase alignment for the new Halbarrow satellite," Donna said without missing a beat.

Rose smiled, amazed at how far the other woman had come. "Any chance you know what's got his knickers in a twist?"

"Healy came and told him he wanted to ask you out," Donna replied and Rose let out a most un-lady like, un-Bad Wolf like snort that devolved into laughter.  
"Think it's funny then?" The Doctor asked, joining them, his brow raised in perturbation.

"Hells yeah!" Rose exclaimed, laughing some more. "Healy couldn't tell his arse from the butt of the rifle 'fore I trained him, could he?" Donna joined her in laughing about him though the Doctor still looked a little cross. "Why're ya bent out'a shape about it?" Rose asked after her laughter was spent, eyeing the Doctor curiously. Their conversation after the UNIT incident had led her to believe that jealousy wasn't a thing they were either of them much bothered with.  
"Doesn't it bother you?" The Doctor said, voice high in agitation. "These...these men who think it's a tug of war and you're some bloody hunk of meat in-between?"

Rose raised her most skeptical brow at him before her eyes fell on Donna again and both women started laughing.

"What do you think I deal with at work all the time?" Rose eventually managed to ask him, carefully wiping tears from her eyes to prevent her mascara from smearing. The Doctor looked incredulous. "I've broken the fingers of more personnel than I can remember for havin' wandering hands. This is nothin.'"  
Still dumbfounded, the Doctor looked at Donna to confirm and she nodded. "It's a man's world, sweetheart."

"Anyway, I was actually down here to check on the Halbarrow satellite. Was supposed to be done two weeks ago, ya know," Rose said, snapping the Doctor back to the matter at hand.

"Did you just deadline me?" He was appalled, voice high with incredulity.

"No," Rose said airily, "I'm just tellin' ya the facts. Time isn't as relative for ya as it used to be." She winked at him.

The Doctor huffed.

At the end of the day, Rose was logging out of her computer when her comm chattered.

" **Rose?** "

She didn't have to guess. No one else called her that at work. "Doctor," she replied, a smile pulling at her lips.

" **Are you alone?** "

A strange question, she thought. "Yeah, m'just in the office. Why?"

" **Just...wanted to see if you were up for a short trip in the Rdis** ," he replied too airily. The same tone he had used when she had asked if he was okay after losing Reinette. _I'm always all right_.

Rose thought about that memory before replying. "Yeah...how comes you didn't just come up?" He almost always did.

" **I just...I dunno**."

"Doctor?" Rose asked after he remained silent a minute.

" **Do I make it harder for you? At Torchwood I mean.** "

Sitting back, Rose considered this. The very notion was absurd and the better question was why he thought he might. His earlier indignation at the way she was treated by some of her male colleagues sprang to mind. She raised her comm, "do you remember...how you used to say things like...there was no higher authority than you?"

A short silence. " **Yeah**."

"Well...I never understood what that must've felt like, honestly just thought it sounded puffed up," she stopped to let out an amused huff of air. "But...when you're the one everybody else is lookin' to...to save them, save the planet, have the plan...I can't help but think now that that would've been a whole hell of a lot easier for ya if you'd known there were other Time Lords out there...someone who'd have your back..."

" **I'll always have your back** ," the Doctor said after a minute and Rose smiled.

"Meet you at the Rdis, but next time, come and get me. Let tongues wag."

" **Done**."


	8. Things Found, Things Lost

They saw few people regularly. Tony slept over every other weeks or so and they would stay up late watching movies and eating junk food, wind up the three of them piled uncomfortably asleep on the couch. Jackie and Pete still came for dinner once a month but lately it was Donna who had been invited to their flat regularly, moreso after the incident at the UN function.

That particular night Rose had taken command of the kitchen after the Doctor and Donna got distracted dancing and singing to The Who's 'Face Dances' after half a bottle of red wine. The A side ended and the two of them landed on the couch laughing so hard they were nearly choking for a lack of breath.

They were still tittering occasionally when Rose came up behind the couch and offered a spoon to the Doctor. He slurped at it and considered. "Mmmm...needs more licorice." Rose smacked him and he giggled.

"You're useless," Rose groused good naturedly.

The Doctor flopped onto his side when Donna, whom he had been propped up against, got up and went to assist their cook. He hummed the first track of the album contentedly, his eyes closed.

"So...you know how you two are always on about...parallel universe's an' that?" Donna said in the kitchen.

Rose replied, "yeah," distractedly as she put the chops they were to eat back in the oven and the Doctor parroted her a second later.  
"An' that you two...well everyone says _you both_ came from one," Donna continued.

This sparked a niggling sensation in the backs of both Rose and the Doctor's minds.

"We did," Rose finally answered, rubbing her hands on a dish cloth and looking Donna in the eye. The other woman looked nervous but decided. The Doctor's eyes were wide open but he hadn't moved an inch, his breath holding in his chest as he stared up at the ceiling apprehensively.

"Did you know me...in that universe?" Donna asked and Rose's face grew guarded. Something about all of this made Rose understand Donna wasn't really asking her, Donna was asking the Doctor. Rose wondered about what he would say if asked directly, and how much he wouldn't.

Remembering a morgue in London in an alternate timeline that never really was, remembering the man they both loved in different ways blue and still, and that it was Donna who had prevented that, Rose made a decision.

"We did," she answered finally.

"Rose!" The Doctor yelled as he popped up from the couch finally, eyes blazing at her.

Donna looked back and forth between them as they argued.

"We said we'd tell her eventually," Rose said firmly, not cowed by the Doctor's stormy demeanour in the least.

"It's too soon," he snarled, teeth flashing.

"How's that? She's seen enough. The bond you had with the Donna in our universe is bleedin' through, I know ya can tell. It's got to be confusin' for her," Rose said, looking at Donna again.

Opening his mouth to respond, hopefully with something angry and final, the Doctor was forestalled by Donna turning to him and the look she gave him. The look of his best friend.

"You knew me...before?" She said quietly and the Doctor's jaw worked but he didn't know what to say.

"Do you want to see?" Rose asked and Donna looked at her, uncomprehending.

"No!" Again, the Doctor was fierce. This time he had stepped to within an inch of Rose.

"Why?!" And Rose was just as vicious. She felt his fear, tried to reach out and calm it. "They're her memories that ya have...from the metacrisis." Rose breathed deeply, searching his eyes. "She could understand...everything that you were to eachother."

It was the situation the Doctor had hoped to avoid perpetually. He looked strickenly at Rose, knew she understood what was at stake for him.

"What don't you want me to see?" Donna asked, looking from Rose to the Doctor and back.

Wincing as he closed his eyes to shut out Rose, the Doctor turned to Donna.

"I've only shown you...a grain of sand of what's out there in the whole of the universe. There is...so much more," he tried to explain.

"I want to see it," Donna said earnestly, closing the distance to her friend. She had been easily seduced by the idea of far off worlds and the stars and the extraordinary, but only with him as her guide.

"And what if you don't like what you see?" He breathed heavily, shakily. "There are things that we've done, things that we've seen...hard, _brutal_ things." He swallowed, closed his eyes and thought about how she was the closest thing to biological family that he had. "And maybe there are truths about us that would...that would," he faltered, his lips struggling to find the words, "that would make you leave."

Donna looked pained at the very suggestion. "But you're..." she smiled in the moment it took her to find the perfect descriptor, "you're my best friend." She barely knew him, in the sense of time, yet she knew it was true. The very notion that any thing could make her leave him was absurd to her, even if she didn't understand why she had trusted him so readily so soon.

The Doctor's eyes shone with tears as he stepped to within an inch of Donna and placed his fingertips against her temples, his thumbs at her jaw. "Please don't leave," he breathed and they descended into the blackness of psychic space before Donna's memories, those the Doctor had inherited from the Donna in his home universe, spilled from him to the woman before him.

Rose rushed to steady the two of them as Donna gasped, her eyes shut tight, and staggered.

Donna Noble had lived decades with the Doctor, literally. In the year she had travelled with him she had spent 10 years inside the Library's computer and repeated two in an alternate timeline. The transfer of these memories was relatively short. It took her a bit longer to process them all after she stumbled back from the Doctor and, caught by Rose, sat down infront of their fridge.

Coming back to the present, Donna felt Rose by her side, the other woman's arm around her. She sat with her legs to her chest, her hands at her face. Bringing them away, Donna looked up to see the Doctor sitting opposite her against the cupboards, his eyes red rimmed, his face drawn.

"I left you," Donna finally whispered, her throat dry, "and I went off in the Tardis...with him."

"We all made sacrifices," the Doctor said quietly. That was a day he didn't like thinking about.

"But I'm your...we're family!" Donna said, tears slipping down her cheeks.

"I got Rose," he said and and rubbed his face with his hands, trying to regain some semblance of composure before looking at the two women opposite him again.

Donna crawled over to him and sat on her knees beside him, looking him over. "I don't think she...I...understood what I was taking away from you."

"I knew full well what I was taking away from him," the Doctor said, eyes flicking up to Rose.

Rose turned away from him with a supportive mental caress before she went to the balcony and lit a smoke. She stared at the zeppelins and flipped their adopted universe the bird again. The Doctor and Donna reunited. Sort of. Everything in that universe, just a little skewed. She thought of the man she had watched step into the Tardis and leave her behind again and she put her head in her hands and breathed.

When Rose looked up she inhaled a deep lungful, then looked over her shoulder. Through the glass doors she could see Donna and the Doctor still on the floor, holding each other. She smiled at the bittersweetness of it all and sent a prayer to Time and Space, whichever might've been listening at that moment, to always send the other Doctor someone like Donna.

-#-

Time passed. Not much, but enough. Enough for Donna to avoid the Doctor at work for a few days while she worked some things out for herself. Enough for her to spend several nights talking to him into the wee hours about the things they had done. And when enough time had passed, she invited Rose and the Doctor to dinner with her mum and granddad.

-#-

Donna sat on the table the Doctor was working at, attaching wires into the back of a plain looking box and monitoring the numbers on a display. "We should do a new years party, here, on the floor, just the science geeks. What d'ya think?"

"Mmm," the Doctor murmured in seeming assent though Donna knew he had been only half listening.

"Great," Donna beamed. She hopped off the table and went out into Tech two. "Oi! We are havin' a great big new years party right here! Celebrate proper, the Doctor says," Donna hollered to the room at large, placing her hands on her hips and beaming around at her cheering co-workers.

"The _Doctor_ says, does he?"

The cheering stopped abruptly as everyone looked to the stairway to find Bad Wolf striding from it. Her voice carried, even bringing the Doctor out from the Shed, hastily stuffing his specs into his jacket pocket and frowning around for Rose.

"What?" He asked.

"Plannin' a new years party on Tech two?" Rose asked, crossing her arms and glaring at him, unamused.

"Am I?" the Doctor asked, rubbing at the base of his neck. "Hmmm."

Donna looked back and forth between the clearly puzzled Doctor and the irate Bad Wolf. "We just thought it might be nice, have a little do for the science workers..." Her words faded when she met Rose's fierce eyes.

"Might be nice to have 60 drunken revellers in the emergency command centre of Primary Operations?" Rose asked her.

Donna swallowed and the Doctor winced to see her cowering under Rose's gaze. Bad Wolf was about the only person Donna cowered for and even then, not very often.

"Weeell," the Doctor interjected, drawing Rose's attention back to him, "just a little party, innit? What's so wrong with that? What're the chances some aliens'll show up new years eve and-"

At 'chances' Rose had let loose a feeling of such immense fury from her mind that it quickly shut the Doctor up. He swallowed and reached back to her.

 _Rose, they just want to let loose. Look at them._

With that, Rose slowly glanced left and right at the clearly terrified Tech's on either side of her.

 _They deal with the improbable every day and no one at Torchwood gives them half the credit they give the personnel. These people make what we do possible._

The Doctor slipped his hands into his pockets and attempted a slight uptwitch of the corner of his mouth.

Rose inhaled. _Peer pressure works like a hot damn on you_.

The Doctor grinned at her.

Biting back a sigh, Rose said, "not on Tech two, you can do it on Tech one and you have to clear it with their floor head."

Donna let out a 'whoop' and the others followed her, forgetting Bad Wolf entirely as they turned to one another in their excitement.

 _Thank you_ , the Doctor whispered to Rose's mind.

 _Yeah yeah_ , she replied warmly. _How's the Halbarrow satellite comin?_

Completely ignored by the techs around them, the Doctor dropped his jaw, shut it and winced.

Rose pursed her lips and nodded curtly, glaring at him. _What exactly have you been workin' on the last two weeks?_

The image came, unbidden, to the Doctor's mind before he could stop her from seeing it and he closed his eyes, his face screwed up. Busted.

Rose came right up to him, arms crossed over her chest. " _Banana flavoured rations?_ " She seethed.

The Doctor cracked an eye at her. "For science?" He winced when she groaned furiously at him.

"That satellite better be ready for launch by next week," she warned as she walked away from him, "or I'm sending ya and 25 personnel out on a month long trainin' exercise w'nothin' but your science project."

Grinning, the Doctor wondered where the threat in that was. Then he wondered if everyone liked bananas as much as he did. Then he thought about 25 Torchwood personnel surviving on the reconstituted banana flavoured entrées, banana flavoured tea and banana flavoured biscuits he had devised. He cleared his throat and went back to the shed to see how Donna had gotten along with the satellite.

-#-

"It'll be up by the end of the week," Rose said placatingly to the very grumpy head of interstellar communications as she stopped outside her office and he carried on. She looked to the heavens and shook her head slightly, praying that the Doctor had returned to work on the Halbarrow satellite.

She slid her hand along the wall next to her office door and as she did so, her vision exploded with golden light. Biting down on her tongue to keep from gasping, Rose stumbled into her office and just managed to close the door before she fell to the floor.

Every nerve in her body felt afire, her soul was being shredded apart. She wasn't certain there would be anything left of her. It felt like death.

In the burning gold that surrounded her, Rose heard her own voice, young but so full of strength, _I create myself._

She opened her eyes. Before her she saw the Doctor and could just make out the coral-like supports of the Tardis beyond him. His eyes were wide, so afraid, and when they saw her she felt his anguish pour through her.

" _ROSE!"_ He reached for her as he screamed her name.

He was the one in agony. He was the one dying.

As he did so, his loneliness and regret were so strong they broke across time and space, across the void. He called out to the only thing he had ever believed in with the surety of one devout.

Rose reached out to him, their fingertips just grazing one another's, and screamed back just as fiercely that she was there, she was there for him.

-#-

" **Tower to Doctor, do you have a 10-20 on Bad Wolf?** "

The heaviest sigh. "Tower...I have no idea what you mean. I work in sciences, we don't use comms for tactical communication. Can you just...you know...use your words?"

" **Doctor, do you have Bad Wolf's location?** "

The Doctor looked up frowning from the computer screen he had been leaning over, at which Donna sat. "Why are you asking?"

" **That should be obvious, Doctor**."

Donna met the Doctor's eyes and they exchanged a worried look.  
"Tower, I don't know where she is. How long have you been looking?" He asked into his comm.

" **Bad Wolf was due in a meeting 45 minutes ago**."

The Doctor's eyes darted left and right. 45 minutes was peanuts but Rose was jeopardy friendly. She could easily find herself dead in that time. He brought his comm to his lips and spoke softly. "Rose?" He waited. "Rose, are you there?"

He looked at Donna, concern writ clear on his face before she stood and they walked out of the Shed.

-#-

 _I don't want to go._

Rose started awake as she heard the words, like a whisper just at her ear. She was breathing in short bursts, hurt everywhere. Sitting up, she swallowed and became aware of the taste of blood. On the floor where she had lain was a small dark spot of the stuff and Rose stuck out her tongue to delicately touch where she had bitten down.

Then she remembered. His face, his beautiful face contorted, his hearts raw and slowly being picked apart to be stitched back together, completely different.

Worse than that was what he felt, what she felt through him, and what she understood from that feeling. He had been alone.

The Doctor had died alone.

Her comm had been chattering the entire time. A name she had taken on partly as a shield, partly to honour the stream of time and what it had made her and allowed her to do, battering numbly at her ears.

Then his voice, as it had been in her dreams when she had first come to this universe.

" **Rose?**... **Rose, are you there?** "

She retched.

Names had power unto themselves, and spoken by some, they could unmake a person. Oh how he could unmake her with just one word.

Rose punched the floor as rage overcame her. She struck again and sat up, breathing deeply. She looked at her comm, assessed how long she had been out. Wiping at her mouth, Rose brought her comm to her lips. "Tower, Doctor, this is Bad Wolf. Sorry for the alarm, my comm's on the fritz."

" **10-4 Bad Wolf. Tower will advise you are 10-8**."

" **Rose? Are you all right?** "

Mouth going dry at his voice, Rose closed her eyes and forced herself to be calm when she replied. "M'okay. Comm's just actin' up is all."

" **They said you were unreachable for 45** _ **minutes**_ ," the Doctor responded sharply.

"And I'll be unreachable for another 45 if I witter on w'you. I've got a meetin," she brushed him off and breathed a sigh of relief when he didn't respond.

She cleaned herself up as best as possible with the wipes in the rudimentary first aid kit from her desk. Then she called into the Tower that she would be out for the rest of the afternoon.

-#-

The Doctor went up to her office at five o'clock, early even for him and certainly for her. He was a little miffed that he wasn't surprised to find it empty. He barrelled down the Tower's stairs and ran to the station. He gritted his teeth the whole ride, ran to their flat. At no time did she reply to any of the several comms messages he sent.

-#-

Rose had needed time. Time without him nearby sensing her thoughts and feelings. Time away from the very idea of him.

Because she was drowning in thoughts of him.

Old, old memories were a jumble with the vision she had had of him regenerating. The first time they had ever touched, ever ran from danger together. Their fingertips meeting just before the regeneration was complete. The death in his eyes when he had told her that he was the last of the Time Lords. The raw sorrow in his eyes as he screamed for her from another universe, screamed for comfort because he was alone. What his lips felt like the first time they ever kissed, just before she lost him for the first time. What his lips felt like when they had crushed against hers in thanks for the gift of his best friend.

It was a mess. She was a mess.

She pulped her knuckles against the brick of their balcony then leaned against them when she was too tired to move anymore, her face to the rough stone, crying silently with her eyes screwed shut. Under the blistering hot stream of the shower, the Bad Wolf howled her tears for her Time Lord kindred. And she ached and ached and ached.

Rose packed light, just a duffel, figuring she wouldn't need much. She dropped it by the door then turned and looked at their flat, thought about him, the him that would come home here. Quickly she dipped into the kitchen, found a pen and some paper and sat at the couch. The pen poised over the paper, she thought about what he would want to hear, what he would need. She didn't feel capable of doing much for him but giving him nothing to go on felt very wrong.

She breathed. She put the pen to the paper. Five minutes later she grabbed her bag and left. Tossing it into the back of the jeep, she drove, her memories keeping her hard company as she went.

-#-

He soniced the door to shave seconds, burst in to the flat and looked around, jacket spinning about his legs before he saw the note. Sitting down heavily, he read it, saw the barely perceptible jitter marks that indicated emotional duress, the pressure points that indicated where she had paused and she had paused often for such a brief note.

 _Doctor,_

 _I'm okay, please don't worry. I've gone to The Beach. Expect me home next Friday, afternoon or evening. Work knows, they shouldn't bother you about where I am. I am sorry I didn't tell you before I left, really. Take care._

 _Rose_

She hadn't known what to write, he could tell. Shot through the note was the feeling that she might not have written it at all. He sighed and tucked the paper into his jacket.

Then he ran like he always did.

-#-

It was funny how much her understanding of the Doctor had grown with her other self's memories. His habits, his silences, his deflective humour and excitement. The Doctor still didn't make sense, nobody really does on the face things. But Donna at least understood what it was he was hoping to accomplish with some of his more obtuse actions.

Like lying to her when he wanted to avoid talking about something he should've known she could help with.

She unlocked the Rdis and pressed the doors open. The lights were on as she suspected they would be, and The Clash was blasting on the speakers. The metallic clang of someone hammering reached her ears but she couldn't see him yet.

Walking around the console, she found his plimsolls sticking out from a hatch in the floor grating that had been thrown open. "Dinner cancelled then?"

A clang followed by a curse in a language she didn't speak. The Doctor emerged from the hatch rubbing his head and stared up at her with the scowl of one who has been caught and knows there's no escape. Donna had invited him and Rose to tea at her place and he had declined, saying they were already expected at the mansion that evening.

"What's goin' on skinny boy?" Donna asked, dropping her feet into the hatch and sitting on its edge. When he didn't answer and kept rubbing distractedly at his head, she tried, "where's Rose?"

With that, the Doctor hopped out of the hatch like he'd been burned and began racing about the console, sonicing bits of it, pressing buttons.  
"How about a trip?!" He cried, "the Adiabarian system's sun is having flares 200 meters long right now. Or! There's an asteroid in the nu quadrant, emitting some strange signals, could be worth a look, eh?"

Donna slowly walked to his side and tried to meet his eyes, manic as he considered possible destinations. "You wouldn't want to leave her behind, though, would you?" He looked aside at her, the fire in his eyes extinguished to weak embers in an instant. "What if something happened and she needed ya?"

Donna looked at him with gentle eyes, raised a hand to rub his back when he dropped his head and leaned with both hands heavily against the console.  
"Oh Donna," he said quietly. After a moment, he straightened and turned to sit against the console, his head turned toward his friend. "You know, the longest I've ever stayed in one place for anyone was 17 years. Imagine that? Not two decades in 900 years."

Both silently contemplated this a minute during which Donna reached over and fiddled with a few knobs until the music died. "Did you two have a row?"

"No," the Doctor said, crossing his arms, arching a brow. After a minute he sighed and reached into his coat, withdrew the note and handed it to Donna.

She read it over and frowned at him. "So she went to the beach, why are you all bent out of shape about her having a vacation."

The Doctor scowled at her and snatched back the note. "Not the beach, _The_ beach. She's gone to Norway."  
"Oh," Donna said, " _that_ beach. You sure?"

He brought a hand to rub at his face and groaned. "Pretty sure. I don't know why she left without talking to me...but she was gone last night, after we lost comm contact with her."

Donna looked at her friend's face in profile, the hard lines that seeped into it when he was actually under stress, showing his age. She slipped an arm around his shoulders and leaned her head against him. "You remember what you said? 'Bout no one ownin' her?"

Gritting his teeth, the Doctor swallowed then nodded.

"She let you know where she was, when she'd be back. You'll see her next Friday, yeah?"

Eventually he nodded, "Yeah."

-#-

If Time were a god, it would embody patience, healing and oddly enough, death. At least, Rose thought it would.

She remembered the route they had driven the first time they went to Dårlig Ulv Stranden. The French, Belgian and German country sides were beautiful in the approaching winter, beautiful but sparse. The trees still had their leaves last time but they were mostly stripped bare now. Hamburg was the biggest city she had to go through but shy of stopping for petrol and food, Rose didn't need to be there long. Night had come shortly before she had arrived in the city and the north of Germany and Denmark were lost to her view. They were just roads outlined in her headlights, traffic signs going from German to Danish.

A watery grey dawn was struggling into existence as Rose waited at the ferry, sitting atop her jeep's bonnet and smoking. She still wore her black leather coat, the one she had worn the first time she had made this trip. It was too cold for it but she loved that jacket, now patched on the left elbow and left cuff.

She stubbed out her fag on the sole of her boot and flicked it to the pavement when the announcement for loading came. Rose hadn't spoken any Danish the last time she had been there.

The ferry was big, big enough that even the substantial swells of the North Sea felt like the gentle rocking of a mother's hand on a cradle. Rose was half frozen by the time they pulled into harbour. She had stood out at the railings the entire sailing, watching the pewter water as it raged as she had done her first trip. Hands numb and eyes burning with a fatigue she didn't want to acknowledge, she carried on. Norway went slower out of necessity. She had already been traveling for the better part of a day and the roads she needed to take were narrow and winding.

She had never appreciated how deep Norway was, a country full of fathomless blue lakes and mountains that stood as impossibly tall as gods. She could see it now, now that some time had passed and the last bruises of her youth were faded somewhat.

The Beach was always the same, Time preserving it in the eyes of men. She parked on the cliff that overlooked it and crawled into the bench seat in the back. The windows open, she could hear the surf as she fell asleep. It crashed and sighed like the breath of a beast and above it Rose listened for the Tardis, like she had the first time she'd come there.

Sleep came. The Tardis did not as she had known it wouldn't.

-#-

The Tardis ground into existence on the sand and he stepped out, offered her his hand and she ran to him with abandon. The door closed and the Tardis engines screamed once more, it faded and was gone. They were gone. All of them.

The Doctor sat bolt up right in bed, his clothes soaked through with cold sweat. He sat heaving for a few minutes before he put his head in his hands and rocked himself.

 _Rose wouldn't do that_ , he told himself, _not to anyone, not to me, not after everything we've done here._ He shook his head, a little disgusted with himself. _It'd be no worse than some of the things I've done to her._ Then he wondered if he had always had this much self doubt or whether this was his humanity trying to scare him to an early death. He sighed and flopped back on his pillows.

Just three days apart and he was starting to feel physically nauseous without her mental presence nearby.

-#-

Rose had hiked and ran the beach and its surrounds for days, seeing no one and glad of it. A storm had come and she had sat it out in the back of the jeep, the glass opened so she could appreciate the raw fury of it. In the evenings, she still wandered though not as far. There were no lights in Bad Wolf Bay, none except the stars and the clouds only let them through on her last night. A million spots of light shone in the black of the sky and Rose stayed up until the wee hours to watch them turn with the earth's rotation, to watch the sliver of the moon rise and set.

It brought her second meeting with the Doctor to mind, when he told her he could feel such things as the earth's rotation and she smiled sadly.

As dawn broke, she went down the beach for the last time and found the spot. There was nothing that marked it yet still she knew it. Crouching, keeping her knees from the wet sand, Rose laid a hand where the Tardis had last landed.

"Doctor," she whispered and felt a single tired tear wend its way down her cheek.

-#-

Friday afternoon a week and a half later found the Doctor sprinting to their flat, his jacket whipping about behind him. He came to a halt with a few heavy footfalls and leaned on his knees in the parking lot when he saw the jeep wasn't there. Dropping himself onto the steps that led up to their flat, he waited, pulled his jacket around him when a light drizzle started up.

An hour later one of the cars that startled him to attention finally turned out to be the jeep. It rumbled up to Rose's parking spot and the Doctor stood, heart hammering in his chest. He had a thing about reunions.

The door slammed and Rose came around the jeep. Grinning, the Doctor took a step toward her just as she looked up, saw him and took a step back, her eyes squeezed shut. She held a hand up to him, palm out. "Wait!" She said sharply, both in reply to his physical presence and to the onslaught of his mental demands on her. The Doctor stopped dead, one hand outstretched to her.

Upon meeting the wall in her mind, he withdrew psychically, guessing he had startled her in his rush to join their minds again. It was hard to do; he ached to feel her mind next to his.

Breathing steadily to calm herself, Rose fought down the images of him burning and forced herself to open her eyes, to see the Doctor standing before her. Some sliver of her felt guilt at the concern in his eyes. A hand still up to ward him off, Rose stepped toward the stairs.

"Please don't touch me," she asked quietly and he nodded his ascent after a minute, confused though he was by the request.

Rose climbed the stairs and he followed a step behind, careful not to come close to her. When she went immediately to the kitchen to fill the kettle, he took it from her by the bottom to avoid her hands, staring at the bandages on her knuckles as he did so.

"Go sit," he said gently and Rose turned from him. He swallowed down the sick feeling he got at the fact that she wouldn't look at him.

He returned to the living room with a strong cup of tea to find her sitting at one end of the couch, legs drawn under her, staring out the window. Perching on the end of the table a safe distance from her, he set the mug before her and she thanked him but otherwise didn't acknowledge him. Some time after her tea was gone, Rose closed her eyes and drew her lips into her mouth to wet them.

"I'm not sure where to...I'm not sure what t'say," she decided on finally, in a way, asking him for help. Her voice sounded funny in her own ears after more than a week of silence.

The Doctor inhaled. "What happened last Wednesday...when we lost contact with you?" He caught how she braced herself at the sound of his voice and the idea that he was upsetting her occurred to him but not why.

Inhaling deeply, Rose forced the images of him regenerating to the forefront of her mind. "It hurts like hell, doesn't it?" She asked and the Doctor frowned at her. "When ya regenerate, it feels like you're dying."

This truly perplexed him. "I...yes. I suppose it does." He rarely thought about it but it was true. "Rose, I'm not dying."

Her name again on his lips and Rose shivered as though with cold, remembering him screaming for her, desperate for her, in his last moment. "No...he's gone...the Doctor in our universe...he...he changed."

The Doctor stared at her, mouth agape. "How do you know?" He managed after a minute.

Rose's face was in her hands now, anguish drawing lines on the small parts of it the Doctor could see. "I felt it," she said as her voice cracked, "I saw him...I..." But she couldn't finish.

Coming face to face with the Doctor again only reminded Rose of how deeply she cared for him, all of him, every him that had ever been, every him that would ever be.

All the Doctor could do was watch her cry silently, feeling like she was just as far away as if she had been in Norway.

-#-

They slept apart that night and Rose went over to the mansion to see Tony the next day, the Doctor respecting her request not to come with. He spent a few hours with the infant Tardis crystal, its song soothing him in Rose's mental absence, then went into work to tinker. They both arrived home late and said little before they went to their separate rooms. He offered to get out of the flat on Sunday and Rose thanked him quietly. She took the opportunity to get some sleep as her rest had been fitful at best lately. Making certain to stay within comm reach, just in case, the Doctor put the Rdis in a low orbit about the earth and pondered for the first time the death of himself or his brother. He had never had the opportunity to process what that man, that other Doctor, was to him.

The Doctor had hoped that the routine of work would help them ease back into the life they had been building but it only seemed to allow Rose more time away from him. A constant headache had come upon the Doctor as his mind yearned to contact Rose and he fought to contain the urge. It was making him irritable as well as Rose. She was likewise fighting the connection, fighting any and all thoughts of him to avoid remembering, to avoid feeling.

Things might have gone on between them like that indefinitely had a training exercise for Tech two not been scheduled the third week of November. Rose had prioritized basic personnel training for all science staff shortly after wrapping up operation Black Sky. All Chem and Bio staff had been through it in the past few months and Tech was slated for year end. Which meant the thirty odd science workers from Tech two stood in Hanger one nervously in the early hours of Monday morning, dreading the 12 hour day ahead of them. And the five 12 hour days that would follow.

They murmured amongst themselves quietly, except for the Doctor who stood in jeans, a t-shirt and his plimsolls. He was quiet and agitated, his mind elsewhere. Donna was chatting to Peter next to him, both of them in the dark blue work pants and long sleeved polo shirts that would now officially be their uniforms.

"Quiet," a man from personnel hollered as he strode into the hanger. "Form three lines 10 persons deep. Three lines 10 persons deep, Now! Move!" He belted and the Tech folks struggled to obey. The Doctor just nodded at Donna and Peter to step behind him and they did so, the small nudge of order making others fall behind them.

Their instructor continued giving them information about what they would be doing that day and the rest of the week as Rose walked in. She was likewise in kit with black cargo pants and a tight t-shirt, belt studded with tactical tools and black boots laced halfway up her shins. The Doctor would have smiled at her getup if it didn't pain him so to see her yet feel nothing from her mind.

"...And code names will be used at all times. Every time I hear someone's given name that is 10 pushups for the whole team. Clear?" Their instructor said and the group was quick to respond with a loud 'yes'.

"Doctor," Rose said and all eyes snapped to her, "get into uniform. Now."

"Yeah," the Doctor said slowly, "about that, I...forgot it at home-"

"I know," Rose cut him off and, quickly reaching behind her back, threw a heap of blue clothing at his face. "Change. Now." She repeated.

The Doctor stalked off. They were off to a wonderful start.

The first day wasn't terrible. Basic orders and comm shorthand were discussed. Then they ran drills which involved a lot of practice jabbering into their watches. The second half of the day found the group, split into two, crammed into two separate Helios to learn the basics of the cockpit and the emergency controls. Rose hadn't selected the Doctor into the group she instructed and he took the tube home rather than wait for her to finish her day out.

Reasonably less apprehensive after their good start, Tech two found itself much less confident as the second day wore on. Their first instruction came from Rose as she diagrammed on a white board the basic forms of life they might encounter and how to best go about incapacitating and/or killing them. The Doctor glared at her the entire time in disgust. She ignored him.

Then they practised. Large, thick mats were laid out in the centre of the hanger and some of the workers were selected for demos of defensive and offensive techniques.

"Let me," the Doctor said when one his co-workers shakily protested at Rose selecting her.

"Sit down, Doctor," Rose warned when he stood from kneeling to replace the woman, codenamed Nano and not undeservedly. She was tiny.

"She's terrified!" The Doctor snarled.

"And she always will be if she's never given a chance to test herself!" Rose said firmly, her anger at his challenge reasonably well hidden. She gestured Nano over and wound up tossing her unceremoniously to the floor a couple times before guiding her through how to return the favour. A pat on the back from Bad Wolf and Nano was smiling when she returned to being a spectator. The Doctor sniffed.

Nearing hour ten, Rose assessed her tired students before pointing to the heaviest, codenamed Jaffa and, with a reluctance only she and the Doctor knew of, the tallest.

"Jaffa, Doctor, up here." Rose signalled them up and talked briefly about how the things they had learned thus far were applicable even if your opponent had the advantage of size or height over you. A few of the women in the class, Donna among them, cheered when Rose had Jaffa come at her and tossed him over her shoulder like he weighed nothing. She clapped him on the back and sent him back to the group.

Then she turned to the Doctor. "Okay Doctor. Have a run at me."

"No," he said simply.

"Doctor-"

"I'm not having a go at you," he repeated, shaking his head as he slipped his hands in his pockets.

Rose's face was unreadable. "Would you rather I have you simulate an attack on one of your team mates?"

He laughed, " _I'd_ rather have a nice cuppa and a banana. I will not be attacking you or anyone else."

Rose shrugged and addressed the group again. "It's true that being attacked gives you the opportunity to use your opponent's momentum against them. Most of what we've done so far can just as easily be used against static targets." She walked around the Doctor where he stood nonchalantly, continuing, "if it's necessary to engage a target that, for instance, is not facing ya," Rose kicked the back of the Doctor's knee in, dropping him onto it before bringing the brunt of her weight down onto his back and toppling them both to the floor, the Doctor grunting as he went down. Rose quickly settled onto his back, slipped an arm around his neck and placed her free hand over his face. It only took a second. "Unbalance them, get them to the ground, and break the neck." She sat up, the Doctor groaning again as her weight shifted and she mimed a punch to the back of the neck. "You can adjust based on the species type you are up against, for instance, using a strike to the back of the neck for Sontarans. What did I say about bodily targets?" Rose finished, getting lightly to her feet.

"Most species are weakest where the most sensory organs are located," the class chimed.

"Good," Rose said. "Doctor, are you all right?"

Picking himself up slowly, the Doctor replied, "never better."

"Good," Rose said again, "now, similar techniques apply for a side on attack," and Rose struck the Doctor's knee from the side, dropping him and causing him to cry out though it was cut off as she wrapped an arm about his neck and tossed him to the ground. "Once again, put your weight over your opponent and go for the sensory hub. Doctor, all right?"

He was slower getting up this time, slower to answer her question. "Doctor?"

"Yeah!" He growled.

When he had finally stood, facing Rose with the most anger he had ever felt toward her, she asked him, "Wanna have a go at me now?"

"No," he roundly refused and Rose tipped her head to the side in acknowledgement of his choice.

"Okay, one last demo, we'll practice on each other for a half hour and then you'll go early." The class groaned with collective gratitude at that.

"All right, if you have no choice but to go head to head with your opponent with bare hands, and they have a size advantage on you, bring them down to your level before you get them to the ground." Rose turned back to the Doctor, "feel free to defend yourself at the least. We'll be gettin' into scenarios where you'll all have to expect that from your partner."

The Doctor didn't reply but did crouch slightly to brace himself as Rose did likewise in preparation. He was focused on her hands, the only part of her he figured he could attempt to control without harming her. To his credit, he managed to get one of them in both of his but Rose had her other arm around the back of his neck in the same second. She used that arm to lever her knee into his chest, using a fraction of the force she normally would, and still winded him enough that he let her hand go. That done, Rose clasped her hands around the back of his neck, pulled his face into her shoulder and applied all her weight to his head. He fell to the ground soundlessly.

Rose gave the class her quick recap of what she had done and sent them off to practice. Still kneeling beside the motionless Doctor, she asked him if he was okay once more. He was breathing jerkily from the knee strike and it was some time before he could speak.

Donna knelt down beside them. "Doctor, you all right?" She asked.

"Temp, I've got him, go practice," Rose said firmly, her eyes hard on Donna's.

"But Bad Wolf, he's-" Donna tried.

"Now," Rose commanded and Donna got up, gently touching the Doctor's shoulder before she left. It was more than Rose was capable of doing for him.

"Doctor," Rose tried again.

"Get away from me," he finally managed to whisper hoarsely.

Not wasting a second, Rose stood and beckoned the other instructor over, ordered him to provide first aid as necessary.

When he finally managed to sit up, the instructor helping him, the Doctor sat and looked at Rose as she watched the class, offering corrections here and there. Rationally, he knew there was nothing malicious about what she had done. Irrationally, which was all the Doctor could fathom being in that moment, he thought she was lashing out at him.

He slept in the Rdis that night and was somewhat surprised to get a comm from Rose an hour and a half after the day at Torchwood ended.

" **Doctor,** " she said softly. He hesitated to reply, his aching body slung in the hammock. Something in the back of his mind had really liked the way she had said his name, though. " **You're not at home...I know it was a rough day an' I just...wanted to make sure you were safe.** "

Reaching over to his jacket which was slung over the railing around the console, the Doctor plucked out the note she had left before going to Norway and scanned it. He brought his comm to his face. "I'm fine, I'm...in the Rdis."

A pause. " **Thank you.** "

Five minutes later, the Doctor spoke into the comm again. "Rose...if you don't know..." he swallowed. "The psychic block...it's hurting me," he finished, feeling weak and slightly ashamed of himself. Something similar had happened with his Time Lord mate hundreds of years ago. He had promised himself he would never let another bond of that sort be poisoned again. The fact that it was happening with Rose made his eyes sting and he jammed the heels of his palms into them to stem the tears that threatened.

At their flat, Rose stared at her comm in the dark, her chest aching along with her head. She still wasn't ready to have him back in her mind.

"I know," was all she could manage.

There was nothing malicious in her reply and the Doctor heard the apology in her tone even if she didn't say it. He sighed and across London, Rose sighed too.


	9. The Strange Gifts We Give

As always, thanks for the reviews!

"On the floor, ten pushups, now!"

"Why the hell do we need codenames, anyway?" The Doctor's voice always pitched high when he was upset. "If we're being attacked, I'm not about to worry whether or not I've got the right bloody codename before I get on the comm."

Rose did what she knew she shouldn't have and dignified his smartassery with a reply. "'Course not, not like we haven't got 16 Petes or Peters alone working at the Tower."

"Well, if we're going to get into it, what kind of a _stupid_ name is Blue Turtle?" he turned to Peter, "no offence," at which Peter shrugged.

"You're one to talk! What the hell kind of a stupid name is _John Smith_?"

" _About as bloody brilliant as Bad Wolf_ ," the Doctor spat back at her, at which the class collectively inhaled sharply at his insubordination.

It was Thursday. They had already spent 48 hours in close proximity to one another, touching in ways that were far from their intimate normal while the Doctor slept on the Rdis to avoid Rose. They were both popping aspirins like addicts for their headaches and their tempers were fraying.

Rose stepped back and shook her head. "All right, the lot of you, keep going 'till I get ten out of the Doctor."

He growled in frustration and quickly fell into plank, his skinny arms struggling. They were already sore from the punishment for the numerous screw ups the group had made on code names.

The whole group groaned as the Doctor finished his tenth and they were allowed back up to their tables. They stood at white folding tables upon which were the rifles and pistols commonly found on personnel in Torchwood. This was atleast an area in which they were somewhat fluent, mechanics rather than bodies.

Indifferent, the Doctor stared at the rifle before him morosely as the others followed instructions on how to power on, take the safety off of, replace the battery on and operate the scopes of their weapons.

"Doctor? Does the class need more pushups?" The other instructor said as he passed the Doctor's table. Donna nudged him.

The Doctor looked the instructor in the eyes as he picked the gun up, slapped the battery pack in, clicked off the safety, brought the butt of it it to his shoulder and pointed it next to the other man's head.

For a second, the instructor was baffled and Donna stopped what she was doing to gape at the Doctor.

The gun in his hands felt like the controls of the Tardis. The Time War was not that long ago for him. It had been a time in which he was rarely without a gun slung over his shoulder or pointed at a Dalek. Two regenerations on and he still remembered.

"Very good," the instructor said and walked on.

The Doctor lowered the rifle and clicked the safety on, stroked the metal of it with his thumb and recalled in a second the horror and the smell, the absolute despair of the war. He dropped the gun back to the table.

-#-

On the whole, Tech two was feeling simultaneously antsy and excited to see Friday come. They had to pass a scenario wherein either their instructor or Bad Wolf played their opponent, which terrified the living hell out of them. But then they were done and that would be brilliant. Plans were hatched to drink their faces off at the pub afterward.

The Doctor and Rose, however, were both done with each other and the Doctor was done with training to be a killer. Mostly, Rose's anxiety came from the fact that she would need the Doctor to complete his scenario and he wasn't likely to, had fought them every time he was required to display even remotely threatening behaviour.

The class was ordered inside the Horizon to await being called for their scenario. They paced, sweated, one or two cried. Donna was excited to either test her metal against Rose, whose combat prowess she frankly admired, or to get close to their instructor, whom she found fit. She and the Doctor were the only ones not displaying nervousness of some kind and she prattled at him about how she might best seduce their instructor.

"Be careful," the Doctor said firmly as Donna was called and she winked at him.

The Doctor was one of five left and held a paper bag to Peter's mouth as the other man hyperventilated when he was called. He patted Peter on the back reassuringly before he walked down the metal stairs. He planned to negotiate his way out of this. If that failed, he planned to be clever. If that failed, he planned to play dead. He was good at plans.

"Doctor," the instructor said as he approached the mats, saw Rose standing with her back to him. "Your scenario is that you need to get past your opponent by any means necessary. Your opponent has their back toward you and is a Sontaran. Do yo understand?"

"Yeah," the Doctor said shortly. He slipped his hands into his pockets as the instructor readied a note screen to mark him. The Doctor walked toward the mats, then abruptly turned to his right and walked the long way around them, avoided Rose's line of sight by walking behind a Helios and made his way back to the instructor. The other man was not amused. "There! Look! Got 'round my Sontaran _opponent_. A plus!" He grinned. The instructor sighed.

"You need to physically engage the target," the instructor said firmly.

"No, no, no" the Doctor corrected, "you said get 'round him by any means necessary. I made it around him, the means were minimal but clever, if I don't say so meself."

"Doctor." Rose's tone was flat. Both men looked around at her.

"Hallo," the Doctor said, his features much less amused at seeing her.

"Get on with it, will ya," Rose said, tired and out of Bad Wolf character. She didn't care if it was only the single personnel member present.

"I did, I-"

"Shut up," Rose cut in, "and shift." She walked back to the matt.

Bending his head from side to side, the Doctor cracked his neck, then cracked his knuckles. "all right." He turned and followed Rose, slipped the sonic out of his pocket and prepared for option number two: cleverness.

He hadn't factored in Rose being clever right back. His scenario was that his opponent had their back to him, and try as he might, the training had sunk in a little. He expected that Rose would keep her back to him.

Rose did not keep her back to him, knowing that if she could at least get him onto the matt, she might be able to catch him off guard and get him to react instinctively. Upon hearing the scuff of his boots, Rose counted off two beats, turned, and charged the Doctor.

She tackled him around the waist, her attack deliberately clumsy, and they both crashed to the matt. Rose pressed the side of his face to the ground, her legs straddling his chest but enough pressure on her knees that he could still breathe.

 _Just make it believable and we can get this over with!_ She growled in his mind and the Doctor was too preoccupied with the attack to notice that she was there.

He tried forcing her hand from his head and grunted with the effort, surprised as Rose's strength.

 _Why? This whole bloody exercise is ridiculous-_

 _Come on_ , she goaded him, _ya used to be a fighter. Ya fought in the time war and it made ya angry enough t'kill. Just be that man, just for a minute._

He finally forced her hand from his face and it fell to the side of his head with the weight of her, bringing her face four inches closer to his, screened from the instructor by the sheet of her hair.

 _OHH, I get it_ , he snarled, _is that was this is all about?_

 _Get what, for god's sake?! Quit philosophising and-_

 _I'm not him!_ _That's what's be-_

He was about to rant, thinking he'd finally discovered what it was that seeing his other self regenerate had triggered in her, that he wasn't really the Doctor, the she had lost that man a long time ago. But Rose's eyes had gone wide at the three words, at their implication, and she had interrupted him.

"You _arrogant_ sod!" She roared and at 'sod' she had belted him across the cheek with her fist, the only real hit she had delivered the entire week of training.

" _Bad Wolf!_ " The other instructor was at their side immediately, hauling her to her feet and dragging her away from the Doctor.

Eyes wide, Rose was glaring at him, her chest heaving while he stared up at her from the ground, eyes equally wide. "You _hit_ me," he said faintly.

"Back up, Bad Wolf, back up!" The instructor forced Rose back and she went willingly, walked from the mats and kept going even after he turned back to attend to the Doctor.

-#-

The science techs were never supposed to be hit in their scenarios, not like those for personnel where they could expect to encounter real violence, though not life threateningly so. Rose herself had insisted on those rules. She was shocked that she had broken them, moreso that she had done so by hitting the Doctor. She flexed her hand, her knuckles aching with fresh pain though they had already been sore from the beating she had given her balcony a few weeks ago.

From the back of the hanger, she heard the other instructor comm for medics from the infirmary, heard them arrive and carry off the Doctor, then the instructor call down the remaining tech workers and tell them their scenarios would be rescheduled.

"I've called for an audit of your actions. They'll expect you in board room 14 in twenty minutes." The instructor looked abashed to be telling her this as he stood at the foot of the Helios she sat on.

Rose hopped down and shook his hand. "M'sorry I put you in that position."

He swallowed, looking forlorn. "Bad Wolf...I..."

Patting him on the shoulder, Rose said, "I know. I'm the one who gave the instructions for an immediate investigation of any misconduct durin' trianin'. You've done right."

She sighed as she left. She had trained the instructor, had the impression he looked up to her. It was the first time she had ever lost face infront of one of her personnel and she didn't like the feeling.

Instead of walking up the stairs, her feet took her down until she entered the infirmary. No one questioned her presence and Rose made a mental note to have the assailants of potential assaults listed on internal patient charts. Even so, she walked over to the gurney he sat upon, his eyes following her.

She took a breath and sat down hesitantly right beside him, their arms touching, before she met his eyes squarely for the first time since all of the stupidity had started.

"I'm sorry I hit ya," she said quietly enough that she wasn't overheard.

The Doctor didn't know what to say. He felt overwhelmed by the sight of her eyes not flinching from his own and the realisation that he could feel her again. Remorse, tenderness and yes, still anger but tempered. He felt her.

Rose equally felt his stupefaction and twitched the corner of her lip up, just a fraction, before brushing her fingertips softly across the bruise forming on his cheek. "I've seen you change your face, become...almost an entirely new man." She ran her fingers down his jaw, across his chin, then his lips, her own stomach clenching at the pleasure he felt when she touched him so. "And I loved that man that you were...daft face...northern accent, your hair kept short...I loved the way you smelled those few times ya hugged me tight." She held his jaw in her hand again and forced the remembered feeling she had of the old Doctor into his mind so he would know how it still _struck_ her, years later. "I _loved_ that man. And then ya changed..." She smiled sadly in a way that was so like the girl she had been that the Doctor smiled sadly too.

She ran a hand into his hair and held it softly, "sort of brown, skinny...and oh how you ran your mouth...held me more often." She felt his affection when she said that and he leaned imperceptibly closer to her. "And I loved the man that you became."

Rose stood and felt the Doctor's yearning for her close again, even as she faced him. "And you are that man...how could ya not be? You are him...you will always be...and _he will always be you_." The Doctor frowned at this, for the first time appreciating how conflicting witnessing his regeneration might've been for her.

"Bad Wolf?"

They both turned, the Doctor shocked out of his reverie, Rose expectant. Three men in suits had approached them.

"Ma'am, you can't be speaking to the victim," the man in the lead said, hand outstretched indicating she should come with them. "It's a violation of Torchwood policy that you've done so."

Rose went with him as the Doctor frowned at the whole proceeding. "What?" He asked, voice high.

One of the others stepped toward him. "Mister Smith, just calm down. You've experienced trauma and there is no need for you to say anything to your attacker."

"What?!" The Doctor repeated as Rose was led away by the other two men, throwing a tired smile over her shoulder for him.

"We need to take your statement about the events that occurred tonight, Mister Smith," the man continued as though he hadn't heard the Doctor's protests.

"WHAT?!" The Doctor persisted. "Rose! Wait, what's going on?"

 _Lyin' in the bed I made_ , she thought to him as the lift closed on her.

-#-

She told them she had hit the Doctor, that he hadn't provoked her which, while technically not true, was the simpler version. The Doctor told them Rose had slipped and the man sent to interview him kept looking at him as though his dog had just died. After artfully wheedling the location of Rose's interview out of the auditor, he left the infirmary, the auditor and medics trying to get him to stay.

He hopped stairs until he got to Boring two and poked his head into Boardroom 14. Rose smirked at him, the auditors looked perturbed.

"Rdis?" He asked Rose.

"Yeah. Give us a tic, they're about to recommend anger management and inform me that if I fail to complete it satisfactorily, an official warning will be added to my personnel file." The auditors gaped like fish. The Doctor grinned at her. "S'ok, boys. I wrote the book. E-mail me when the course is, I'll be there."

Rose got up and went to the Doctor. "You look awful in that shade of blue," she informed him.

He rolled his eyes. "I told you."

-#-

It took time for them to get over setbacks like that but every one left them a little closer in the end. In the Rdis that night they said little, just appreciated the feel of each others minds again. Just as they weren't quite ready to slip back to the level of physical intimacy they had reached, they weren't ready to do so mentally either. Faint emotions and feelings drifted across their connection but nothing more. Still, that was enough to begin easing the head splitting tension both had felt at the disruption of that connection. As they sat at the door of the Rdis, feet swinging out into the black of space, the Doctor slipped his hand into Rose's and felt her grip him tightly back.

-#-

A few weeks from Christmas saw them working on the new Helios prototypes with Donna. Unobserved as they would've been at home, the Doctor and Rose joked and laughed like they had in days long gone.

Rose and Donna were at the helm of the ship configuring it's navigation and sensors when the clang of racing foots steps made them look up. The Doctor ripped Rose's chair around to face him and stared at her intensely, his eyes wide. Both concerned, Donna and Rose waited for him to speak, Rose leaning toward him.

Hands on the arm rests of Rose's chair, the Doctor searched her face. "There's something I need to know, about the regeneration."

Something shifted in Rose's eyes. It was still raw. "What?"

Dead serious, he replied, "did you see...if I was ginger?"

Rose frowned at him then caught the smile struggling onto his lips and sat back with a laugh. Shaking her head, Donna went back to work as Rose carried on.

"Sorry, no," Rose sighed, "but who knows, yeah? Maybe ya are?"

He sat back on his heels and sighed. "Oh, I hope so," he said, eyes twinkling, before he returned to the back of the ship.

-#-

December 24th found the Doctor, Donna and Rose entering the mansion and calling out that they were there as they set down parcels. Tony assaulted his sister instantly, launching himself at her legs before she picked him up and hugged him tightly, kissed his cheeks. She then handed the boy off to the Doctor who spun him about, Tony giggling as he did so. Jackie arrived seconds later and kissed Rose, then Donna and finally the Doctor. Their relationship had evolved to the point where the Doctor would hug and give Jackie a kiss on both cheeks whenever he saw her and she would refrain from kissing him on the lips. Even Pete greeted them at the door those days, shaking hands all around.

They cooked a proper Christmas dinner together in the massive kitchen, Rose having browbeat her mother into letting the help off over the holidays. The Doctor assisted and wrangled Tony with Donna's help while Rose and Pete did most of the cooking, carefully letting Jackie help just enough to feel useful but no more. Laughing, sharing stories, taking the mickey out of each other. It was a proper Christmas and everyone was sore from smiling.

Everyone had been drinking liberally and Tony kept badgering the adults in the way of children who are outnumbered and overlooked. Sitting in Jackie's lap, Tony found the first quiet moment in the previous half hour and chirped, "mum, is John my brover?"

Jackie laughed and bounced him. "Well, he's part of the family, innit he sweetheart?"

Rose squeezed the Doctor's hand where she clasped it on his knee under the table. The Doctor grinned at Tony when the boy called his false name, drawing out the vowel as he squirmed out of his mother's grasp and ran at the Doctor.

Having to release Rose to do so, the Doctor picked Tony up onto his lap, "hallo!" He grinned at the child.

"Do you have a brover?" Tony asked, his eyes shot through with the same amber facets that his sister's were.

Biting back a sigh of old pain, the Doctor replied softly, "I used to do."

The rest of the table had fallen quiet, sipping their drinks. No one but Rose knew anything about the Doctor's family.

"Do you see him sometimes?" Tony asked, fidgeting with the hem of his collared shirt which had come untucked.

"Uuuummm," the Doctor stalled, raising his eyes to the ceiling before dropping them back to Tony, "no...no I don't."

"But why?" And at that the Doctor hugged Tony a little closer and tried his best to keep the boy's focus.

"Because he died," he said softly. "D'you know what it means when a person dies?"

Looking at them, Rose was suddenly reminded that the Doctor had been a parent once and her hand drifted to rest on the back of his neck.

"Um, it means...it means...they goes t'sleep," Tony answered and the Doctor rocked his head from side to side as he weighed this definition.

"Sort of," the Doctor said eventually, "it also means we don't get to see them anymore. So I don't see him anymore, my brother." The Doctor smiled weakly when Tony became distracted by his shirt once more.

"Tell you what, though, my brother was my best friend back in the day. We used to get into all sorts of trouble! Just like you and your sister, eh?" He tickled Tony and the boy's laughter broke the silence enough that the adults resumed their conversation.

With a mouth full of cranberry sauce, the Doctor inclined his head when Tony pulled on his collar a minute later to whisper in his ear. Smirking, the Doctor swallowed and nodded. "I'd like that." Tony smiled and clumsily dropped himself off the Doctor's lap just to hop onto Rose's leg, prompting her to pick him up. He whispered in her ear as well and Rose chuckled at him before replying with a secretive hand covering her lips as she whispered back. Tony vigorously nodded and stayed on her lap until they left the table.

After diner they sang carols roughly with drink-thick tongues as the Doctor accompanied them on the piano, before everyone settled in the sitting room infront of the fire. Rose told her brother stories until he finally drifted off as Jackie and Donna prattled about the shopping they'd had to do that year. Pete and the Doctor attempted a match of chess in which the Doctor was oddly impressed with the other man's abilities.

Returning from laying Tony down, Rose informed them she was heading to bed as well.

"S'barely 11," her mother observed.

"Yeah, an' I've have enough to tranq a horse," Rose replied, rubbing her eyes. She wasn't nearly the drinker she had been in her teens and early twenties. "G'night."

Donna said she was going with and the two women disappeared up the stairs. Jackie drifted off watching the fire on the couch as Pete and the Doctor wrapped up their game. They shook hands after the Doctor announced 'checkmate' and he slouched up the stairs.

The Doctor lifted the covers and crawled in behind Rose, breathed in the scent of her hair as he settled with an arm around her.

"Y'know what Tony was on about at dinner?" She said sleepily, grasping the hand he had placed next to her chest.

"Wassat?" The Doctor yawned.

"His mate Andrew's sister just got married n'told Tony he's got a brother now. Thinks you an' me need to get hitched so you two can be brothers." Through the sleep in her voice, the Doctor could hear her smile. He grinned against her back.

"I love your family," he said softly, drifting off.

"I told him we should just start callin' you his brother and see if we get away w'it," Rose smirked and the Doctor hugged her tighter to his chest.

-#-

"Aaaaaaahhhhhh!"

"No Tony, leave her!"

Jackie chased Tony into Rose's room as the boy flung aside the door and launched himself onto the bed. "Wose! Wose! It's Christmas monin', get up, get up, get up!" He got two solid bounces in, effecting the sitting up of Rose and the Doctor with bleary eyes, before Jackie caught him as he launched himself into the air again. Her son in her arms, Jackie looked down at her daughter and the Doctor with the smuggest knowing smile, one that only mothers seem capable of mastering.

"Well, hello sunshines," she beamed. "And how did we sleep?"

Too tired to note her mother's expression, Rose just gestured for her brother. "S'okay mum, I can take him. C'mere you," and she reached for the boy. Jackie crossed her arms at the side of the bed and looked significantly at the Doctor who squinted at her.

"You all right, Jackie?" He asked.

"Oh, me? Never better. And you?" She raised her brows at him.

"Um, yeah, fine thanks" the Doctor managed before Tony landed in his lap

"Get up, get up, get up!" The boy chanted as his sister slipped form the covers and hugged their mother.

"Merry Christmas mum. Is there coffee?" Rose said into Jackie's shoulder.

"Yes, love," Jackie said and they made their way from the room with their arms about one another, the Doctor with a wriggling Tony slung over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.

Plates full of toast crumbs set about their feet, the Doctor and Rose lounged about on the carpet in front of the tree in the flannel pj bottoms and t-shirts they had slept in, occasionally reaching out to stop Tony from grabbing a present.

"But it's monin'," he whined at Rose.

Rose yawned at him. "We have t'wait for Donna to get up, love. Then we can do presents."

Tony huffed and proceeded to crawl over the Doctor's shoulders, ignoring his sister. A small leg in his face, the Doctor smiled sleepily at Rose. Pete was reading the paper on the couch in his robe while Jackie bustled about in the kitchen.

When Donna finally made her way down she slumped next to the Doctor and gratefully accepted the cup of coffee Jackie handed her. The Doctor nodded at the large fluffy rabbit slippers on her feet and Donna nudged him with one.

Rose dolled out presents one at a time, the first going to Tony who sat at his father's feet so Pete could help him with it. Next, the Doctor unwrapped a slender package from Donna to withdraw a stethoscope.

"Brilliant!" He beamed at her.

Most of the presents the adults exchanged were of the small sentimental type, all of them being comfortable enough to afford what they needed and from backgrounds that made them appreciate the little things the most.

Running her hand underneath the tree, Rose stretched until she felt the corner of the last parcel, tucked at the very back. She withdrew the box, about the size of those that fancy pens came in, and read the tag. "To Bad Wolf, from the homicidal santa robots." She smirked at the Doctor who grinned at her. Unwrapping it, Rose lifted the top of the box and her eyes focused on the item within. "You're kiddin' me," she said softly as the Doctor watched her expectantly.

"Don't tell me you got her a vibrator, 'cause you can save that for another time," Donna joked and the Doctor threw her a dirty look as Jackie laughed.

From the package, Rose lifted a small silver tube and flicked the button on it. 'Bzzt' went the tube, the end glowing a bright pink. "It's pink!" Rose exclaimed with delight, sitting back with a wondrous smile on her face. She looked at the Doctor.

"Fifteen thousand, one hundred and twenty two settings," he said.

"Does one of those make it vibrate?" Rose asked with a laugh, her teeth capturing the tip of her tongue at the corner of her mouth as Donna snorted.

"Ahm...no," the Doctor said, a somewhat perturbed look on his face as though considering the practicality of it.

"Can you imagine?" Donna asked, "whot if ya got the wrong setting and you went at yourself with it an'-" She couldn't continue, the very idea had made her, Rose and Jackie fall over themselves with fits of raucous laughter. The Doctor blushed ever so slightly.

Wiping a tear from the corner of her eye, Rose slipped to the Doctor's side, raised her hand to the back of his neck and kissed him sweetly. "Merry Christmas, Doctor."

"And you," he replied softly, lost in her eyes.

-#-

Excitement for the science division's new year's party had reached a fever pitch when, two weeks before Christmas, word had leaked that Torchwood was supplying the booze. Most of the workers had been out of the Tower on holiday the days leading up to it and it was only the Doctor, Donna and Rose that hung around Tech one. They had arrived a few hours early to clear the benches as much as possible and safely stow the delicate items that normally littered them. This took a relatively long time; what made the science floors perfect for hosting a huge party was that they were massive affairs.

Rose took delivery of several crates of alcohol and the three of them brought most of it up to Tech two, stowed the remainder in the Shed. The Doctor took delivery of forty pounds of bananas and, grinning at his friends, stashed them next to the booze before producing two industrial blenders.

As the first early birds arrived, the older science workers who likely wouldn't last the night, the Doctor had just banged in from the stair well. In his arms he carried a heaping bundle of cables and Donna followed hauling a similar load. Rose talked to the newly arrived workers and half watched as the Doctor approached the massive computer banks that lined the wall. Dropping his bundle, he whipped out his sonic and began working at the terminal.

Excusing herself, Rose made her way over and inquired what he was doing. Attaching one of the cables up the terminal, the Doctor soniced it. "Bruxcan sound system I've got in the Shed? I'm wiring it in"

Rose smirked, crossed her arms and leaned against the terminal. "you plannin' on makin' the sciences deaf?"

He grinned at her, "no! No, no, no. Bruxcan receiver technology was developed to capture the weakest signal hundreds of light years away. We can listen to the classics, all the best stuff, but the original transmissions." He looked at her with manic eyes, watching the delight slowly seep into Rose's face.

"That's brilliant," she said. They were starting to let one another in at more than just the hard moments. Right then the Doctor's excitement was infecting Rose and she was revelling in it, in the feel of his mind and the ease there. Touching his arm, Rose continued with the prep, greeted a few more guests.

By nine the floor was suitably crowded and the Doctor wandered over to the sound system to turn up the volume over the back ground chatter. Just as he was about to he heard Donna's above the crowd. Smirking at how her voice carried, he turned to search for her in the crowd, found her with Rose on one of the walkways that went round the room to access the second story of computer banks.

"Ya can't go, s'not right. I know he's the only person you'd want to be spendin' tonight with," the Doctor overheard as he approached the ladder that led to the walkway.

He popped is head just above the walkway to look at the two women, frowning, "who's going?" He looked between them but settled on Rose.

"I am," she replied, wishing he hadn't overheard. She was becoming more susceptible to his hurt, vaguely pleading looks by the day.

"What?!" The Doctor climbed up and looked at her intently, his mind pressing on hers in search of a reason.

Gently, Rose mentally held him at bay. "This party isn't for me. I want them to be able to unwind, not worry 'bout me hangin' about."

"So don't go stalkin' about like Bad  
"Rose," the Doctor said, having recently discovered how much she loved to hear him say her name and trying to use it to his advantage. "What about that dance you wanted, eh?" His hands settled on her elbows, his thumbs caressed her arm through the long sleeved shirt she wore.

Simultaneously he felt her resolve weaken but also that she didn't want to let her guard down so much at work. He stepped to within an inch of her. "It's only the sciences, no personnel," he reminded her, felt her shift a little more.

Then 'In the Mood' came on the radio and the Doctor's eyes lit up as Rose let out a laugh. He turned and whipped his sonic out of his jacket pocket in one fluid motion, directed it at the sound system to raise the volume as he had originally intended. Turning back to Rose, he snapped his fingers in time to the rhythm and grinned brightly at her, "come on, Rose, that's our song!"

It melted her to see him doing exactly what he had done the last time she had heard this song, even though his face was different, he was different. He took her moment of remembrance for a remaining shred of hesitation and stepped toward her again. "The world doesn't end because the Bad Wolf dances."  
"Oh, come on then!" She cried, giving him a shove, full of memories of the last time they had danced.

The Doctor slid down the railings of the ladder and landed with a thud before raising his arms to beckon Rose to jump to him. With a laugh she did and he caught her tightly, spinning them about toward the not overly crowded dance floor. They cut a swath through the assembled as people realized it was Bad Wolf dancing.

"All right, do you remember how to do this?" The Doctor asked, slipping an arm around Rose's waist and and joining their hands.

"Oi! You'd better!" Rose laughed at him. He grinned at her and she saw him nodding to count out the beat before he started leading her. The Doctor pulled off some fairly impressive flourishes, twisting their bodies around one another in quick, fluid movements. Unable to help herself, Rose laughed like she was nineteen again and a runaway with a daft but occasionally charming alien. The Doctor grinned the entire time, his face hurting for it, feeling her memories of that time, how that old joy mingled with the pleasure she felt dancing with him then.

Suitably convinced that Bad Wolf wasn't paying them any mind, more people joined her and the Doctor on the dance floor.

Their song ended and a slower tune came on. Breathing deeply from the exertion of the jive, the Doctor pressed on the small of Rose's back to bring her close to him and lazily led them to the music. They smiled contentedly, lost in one another's eyes and minds.

"Torchwood would never've paid for this," the Doctor said after a moment, "why didn't you tell them it was you?"

Rose shrugged and leant her head against his shoulder. "Half of 'em are already terrified of me, as you've pointed out. I wanted them to feel appreciated, not...I dunno."

"Humbled?" He supplied.

"Somethin' like that," Rose shrugged, too distracted by the feel of him to care much at that moment.

"You are humbling, Rose, you're magnificent, absolutely brilliant," he told her, Rose leaning back to look in his eyes as he did so. "You! You never get the recognition you deserve, either, comes to it. Would've suggested you get your own party too but that would've just been awkward."

She laughed and again it was the easy laugh of the Rose Tyler he had first met and it warmed the Doctor from head to toe.

Getting drinks, the Doctor and Rose were joined by Donna and fell into conversation about all the fun places they had ever traveled in the Tardis. Rose and Donna subtly shifted the topic when Peter joined them. The Doctor didn't break his train of thought, just put an arm around the other man's shoulders and continued talking. Peter blushed.

"There's my mate Peter. How are you?" The Doctor grinned at the other man and Peter stammered a quiet reply. Rose and Donna bit back empathetic smiles as they watched Peter down his drink nervously.

"Care for a dance, Peter?" Rose asked and when he seemed to shrink back she added, "promise I won't bite."

"No," Peter said with a small smile, "I just...can't really dance."

"Nor me," Rose confided and the Doctor shook his head at the state of affairs.

"Come on then Peter, I've learned Rose, I can do you. Let's show them how it's done, allons-y!" He grabbed Peter by the hand and the other man looked terrified, once more stammered that he couldn't.

"Pish posh," the Doctor shook off Peter's concern as he made their bodies meet the way he had made his and Rose's a while before. "Now, d'you want to learn to lead or follow? You humans are usually pretty wedded to your gender roles but I always thought a good dancer should be able to do either." The Doctor talked like he always did, far too much and far too easily. Peter found this allowed him to look at the other man without feeling as awkward as he normally did around him and smiled somewhat.

"You lead," he responded, finding it hard to focus. He blushed furiously as he kept stepping on the Doctor's toes but the Doctor just grinned encouragement at him.

"There's an award for the universe's daftest alien. We should nominate 'im," Donna said as she observed her friends dancing.

"Yeah," Rose readily agreed.

"So, Peter!" The Doctor said to his friend and Peter tried desperately to focus on what the other man said. "Do you fancy anyone here tonight?"

"What?!" Peter asked, stiffening.

"Relax, Peter! Relax! You just seem nervous is all," the Doctor observed with a wink.

His hand caressing the Doctor's shoulder as though he was adjusting for comfort, Peter managed another weak smile. "There might be someone, yeah."

"Well, word of advice," the Doctor said as Peter stepped on his foot again, "don't dance with them until they've had a few, eh?"

Peter chuckled, a bit of his nervousness abating when he did, giving him the courage to say softly, "I've kind of got my eye on someone, but he's a friend." He met the Doctor's eyes and the Doctor nodded at him.

"Well..." The Doctor said, his eyes flicking to Rose at the side of the crowd for an instant, "You should tell him." He smiled at Peter. "I don't think you'll regret it."

Peter stared at him with an almost pained expression and the Doctor mistook it, thumped him on the back as the song ended. "You're a natural!" He exclaimed as he led Peter back to their friends. Donna was waiting with another drink for Peter who gratefully accepted.

"Donna! You and me have a date with a blender!" The Doctor said, extending a hand to her as he moved toward the table that held the blenders.

Rose smiled warmly at Peter but didn't attempt to engage him in conversation, consoling or otherwise. They didn't have that kind of relationship. He raised his glass to her and they parted ways.

Once the majority of them were significantly intoxicated, Rose found she could talk to her employees without them flinching under her gaze. It was relaxed and afforded her the opportunity to watch the Doctor from the side lines as he danced with any and everyone who would have him. She had to wonder how Torchwood had changed him.

She was sitting on the ladder watching the crowd when he approached her as the clock neared midnight. "Hallo!" He crooned at her and Rose pursed her lips at him before smiling. "How much have you had, Doctor?"

"Me, oooh!" He appeared to think hard about this. "Two of mine," he held up a daiquiri glass and peered at it, "annnnnd, 'bout, um, six more."

"Doctor!" Rose laughed at him, brows raised in surprise.

He leaned heavily on the ladder by her knees and looked up at her, shaking his head. "No, no, no, don't worry! They were only...this big," and with that he placed his thumb and forefinger about five centimetres apart, squinting at the space between them.

"You've had six _shots_ and a couple of your banana daiquiris?" She looked more closely at how he swayed unsteadily on his feet, how loose his tie was and the first two buttons of his shirt were undone, and shook her head. He just grinned at her.

Rose considered the watch face on her comm before looking at the massive vid-screen across the way from her. She slipped her sonic out out of her ankle holster, the Doctor watching her, and raised it at the screen. With a 'bzzt' and a flash of pink light, a countdown clock appeared on the screen to the cheers of those assembled. Slipping the sonic away, Rose looked back to the Doctor as he turned from the screen and they smiled at one another.

"There's aaaaa tradition, innit there? Midnight n' all?" He asked in a way that might've been merely inquisitive were he not three sheets to the wind and incapable of keeping the suggestiveness of the comment from his face.

Rose laughed out loud at him, a proper Rose Tyler laugh. "Yeah, think there is." She hopped down from the ladder and they regarded one another fondly.

"Thank you," the Doctor managed to not slur though he leaned toward her enough that he had to catch himself on the ladder.

Shaking her head at him with incomprehension, Rose just looked into his eyes and awaited elaboration as to why. His mind, fogged with alcohol, was too chaotic for her to read the meaning behind the gratitude.

The Doctor gestured around as the crowd began counting down from ten. "For this, for our home," he sniffed, "for just being...so _bloody_ brilliant," he finished.

Rose shook her head, "thankin' me for keeping you in one place-"

"M'thanking you for keeping me with _you_ ," he cut her off and she had to strain to hear him.

The count hit five and they were both aware of nothing and no one else. As time travelers, or technically former time travelers, specific dates and times had no more meaning than dots on map, places you might consider going or never see, depending. It might've been the booze making the Doctor sentimental, or perhaps it was the fact that they couldn't run from what life had thrown at them in the past year. Whatever the cause, in that moment their first new years together seemed important, something they would remember and they both made to close the distance between them as the countdown hit 'two'.

Naturally, them being in the universe where nothing went quite as it was supposed to, Peter appeared at the Doctor's side, gripped his jaw and kissed him with abandon. The Doctor and Rose were still looking at one another when he did, both wide eyed with surprise, before Rose tossed her head back and started laughing. How could she not? It was the way things went with them and this universe. Upon seeing her do so the Doctor smiled into Peter's mouth, raised his arms and dropped them in surrender before bringing them around Peter and kissing him back for all he was worth. A few in the crowd around them laughed and Donna had a picture of them on her camera phone almost instantly.

Everyone went back to dancing and drinking. Rose, already well behind most people drinks wise, laid off completely after noting how far gone the Doctor was but never the less enjoyed a few more dances with him. He was getting floppy and ridiculous and she found herself laughing at him more than anything else.

Some time after two am, Rose hadn't seen him for a while when she began to get tired. Similar to the feeling of running on adrenaline for too long, she had been interacting with people far drunker that her for long enough and her mind was ready to be done. She cast about for the Doctor, preferring to take him home rather than trust that he would do the smart thing in his state and get a cab. Having no luck on that front, she found Donna next to the drinks and asked her if she'd seen him.

"Last I saw, skinny boy was off t'get some more rum," Donna said, extricating herself from the conversation she was having and walking with Rose toward the stairs.

"Though you'd be knockin' back a few tonight," Rose said questioningly as she observed Donna's steady feet.

Donna shrugged. "I could drink anyone here under the table." They smirked at one another.

Tech two sat in near total darkness save for the numerous lights that blinked or steadily shone in the black. Rose went to the light panel while Donna, once again displaying remarkable cognitive ability for one who had drunk as much as she had, went straight for the Shed. The light's had just hummed on when she ran a hand along the wall next to the door, about to call out for the Doctor when she stopped dead at the threshold.

The Shed was likewise in darkness, for which Donna was very thankful, because it made it impossible to tell who was going at it on her desk. She smiled smugly, crossed her arms and was about to tell whoever they were to knock it off when one of the offenders grunted, "Oh, John," and she froze.

"Donna, is he in there?"

Here Donna would have loved for her reaction time to be less delayed by the alcohol in her system. She made the choice to face Rose and put her arms on the other woman's shoulders, attempting to push her back from the door, rather than close the door outright.

Rose smiled at her like she was being daft. "What is it? S'he passed out?"

Cringing, Donna heard Peter call out the Doctor's alias again, much louder, followed by the unmistakable grunts and furniture slamming sounds of two people shagging each other's brains out.

She cracked an eye at Rose to find the other woman looking in the direction of the Shed a minute, clearly shocked, before a small smile drifted to Rose's lips. She huffed out a single breathy laugh, stepped back from Donna's grip and walked away from the Shed, back to the stairs.

When she finally plucked up the nerve to follow her, Donna pushed at the door to the stairs to find Rose seated halfway up them. She was flicking at her sonic, frowning at it in concentration before she finally raised it to the ceiling and turned it on. Rose squinted at her handiwork before depositing the sonic back in her ankle holster, taking out a fag and the lighter stowed next to it and lighting up. Donna smiled up at the disengaged smoke detector before slowly climbing the stairs and sitting next to Rose.

"Are you all right?" Donna asked, looking aside at Rose, the other woman's face unreadable.

After a lengthy drag, Rose exhaled a stream of smoke and said, "Yeah, I am."

"I was feedin' 'im shots thinkin'...maybe you two would..." Donna said after a minute and grimaced, "I've gone and bullocksed it up."

Rose raised a brow at her. "Donna, he an' I have been sharin' a bed on an' off for the last few months...if somethin' was just gonna happen...it would've by now."

"Oh..." Donna considered this then frowned aside at Rose. "I don't understand you two. Don't you wanna..." she rolled her hands over one another.

"Shag? Yeah," Rose said without hesitation.

"How do you sleep with someone and not... _sleep_ w'them, if you really wanna, you know?"

Rose took a few drags before she sighed. "I dunno...you be a...900 year old alien turned human and the girl who's loved him an'...been torn up by him since before she properly knew what love was..." Rose's eyes searched the space in front of her as though the answers were there before she shook her head, tapped her ashes against the step. "He's only been human for a few months. All of this's new for him. He's like...a 17 year old kid, he's never been smashed before, Donna." Rose said, trying to drive home for her friend a little of what it was like for the Doctor. "He didn't even think 'bout how he was goin' t'get home tonight, wouldn't have crossed his mind that he might need help."

Donna didn't put her arms around Rose as she would have with the Doctor. They were friends, true, but Rose was stiff in a way the Doctor was not, just a little less approachable. Instead, she offered, "complicated, yeah?"

"A bit, yeah," Rose concurred.

"What're you gonna do?" Donna asked after a while and was surprised when Rose grinned and laughed.

"Take the fuckin' mickey out of him every chance I get," and she laughed some more.

Perplexed, Donna eventually followed after Rose when she went back to the party and though she caught glimpses of Rose, she couldn't see any signs that the other woman was upset.

-#-

Rose gave them time and eventually the lift dinged to emit the Doctor and Peter, arms about one another, back to the party. She watched to see if they would eventually split up and thanked Space when they did. Her hand was on the drink the Doctor was raising to his lips before it reached its destination.

"How're you feelin?" She asked him, not surprised when his eyes failed to focus on her.

"Ge-rate," he intoned sluggishly, wincing with the effort it took to follow Rose's face when she nodded.

"Can I take ya home?" She asked, a hand already on his elbow to guide him back to the lift.

He stumbled heavily and Rose, with impressive strength, righted him, threw his arm over her shoulder. " _You_... _you_ can take _me_ home any time," he slurred as she wrangled him into his jacket then propped him against the wall to put her own on.

Depositing him against the back of the lift, Rose comm'd into the Tower to tell them to send up a couple personnel just to keep an eye on the party. When she looked back up to the Doctor, his eyes were straining to focus on her with a black intensity behind them, a depth she usually associated with his age. With a single step he was before her, hand on either side of her on the stubby railing that ran about the lift, eyes boring into hers. Rose was about to comment on his need for some Venutian spearmint when his mind threatened to overwhelm hers.

Gasping, Rose shut her eyes and felt her entire body become uncomfortably hot at his mental advances.

 _Rose, I want you_ , she heard his mind say with a force and clarity he was then incapable of physically. Heart racing, it took so much strength for Rose to repel him, him, a Time Lord with mental abilities she could never dream of having. When she opened her eyes to find him still staring at her with that hungry focus, the both of them breathing heavily, Rose knew it was only because he was inebriated that she had been able to shut down their connection.

Frustration flashed across his features before the Doctor leaned his forehead against Rose's and groaned softly. Rose hugged him to her as the lift opened and they walked from it, the Doctor stumbling.

In the car, Rose shut him into the passengers seat so that his head rested on the open window, just in case she couldn't stop in time should he need her to. And he did. Rose ripped the jeep into the next parking lot they came across when he groaned in a way she recognised all too well from drunken cab rides with Mickey. Unbuckling and snapping her door open in a second, she had him out of his own belt and just leant over the side of the jeep when he was sick.

Rose blew out a breath from between her full lips as she rubbed his right shoulder, his other arm held tight about her waist to hold himself up. She looked aside at the brightly lit sign for the place they had stopped and smirked to herself. They were in the parking lot of Christ the Redeemer Bible College on Kennington Lane just off Renfew. The Doctor spit and groaned once more, tried to sit up but Rose held him down.

"You're not done yet," said quietly to him and he was in the midst of protesting when another bout of vomit cut him off. "Yeah," Rose said mostly to herself, rubbing his shoulder some more.

Ten minutes later she heaved him back into his seat and buckled him up, closed the door on him. Through the open window, in the harsh light from the bible college sign, he looked pale and terribly discomfited. Back into the driver's seat, Rose reached over and grasped his hand after shifting into second back on Kennington, remembering how Mickey had held her the first time she was ever properly sick from the drink.

She got him up the stairs, inside the flat and to her bed, her room being closer than his to the front door by a few feet. Memories of undressing him some five Christmas' prior came to her as she pulled off his coat and plimsolls. Softly, he moaned her name as she was in his room pulling pajamas from his dresser. He was sitting when she returned with a shirt and a glass of water.

"Rose," he whispered and she pressed a glass of water into his hands.

"Drink," she told him and he did, downing the glass. She went back to the kitchen, returned with another and repeated the process, then again, before she knelt before him to undo his dress shirt. She had no idea where his tie had wound up and had to smile a little at the haphazard way in which his buttons had been done up, some skipped all together.

"Rose, would you stay w'me?" He asked as she pulled his shirt down over his shoulders.

She wasn't looking at him as she replied, focused more on getting him out of his sweaty party clothes. "Don't worry, I don't trust ya on your own, much as you've had, eh?" As she freed him from his sleeves, he raised a hand to gently caress her hair and Rose looked up quickly to find his eyes focused on her again, still deep and old. She took his hand from her hair and held it a second before dropping it to wrangle a t-shirt of his. When she had got it over his head and down to his waist he lifted his hands to her temples and started whispering to her, his eyes closed. Her hands on either side of his hips on the bed, Rose looked at his face perplexedly. It took her a second to realise he wasn't speaking English and she was shocked when her mind placed the beautiful, staccato sounds as Gallifreyan.

Rose remembered the words he was speaking from a memory he had shared with her years ago in their days aboard the Tardis. They were something of a prelude to the Gallifreyan binding ritual that mated two minds, the most intimate bond two Time Lords could form. She knew they were beautiful, that they expressed the desire for the deepest connection with another person born of some of the most intense and wondrous feelings that person instilled in you.

She wished he were sober.

Biting her lip, Rose brought a hand to his mouth to hush him before pushing gently at his chest to make him lie back with a 'whump' on the soft duvet. She stripped off his pants and socks and with an arm about his chest, hauled him up from the foot of the bed to lay his head against the pillows.

The trash from the washroom beside the bed, Rose tugged the covers out from under the Doctor and wrapped them both up in them, careful to position herself behind the Doctor and far from his likely roving hands. She fell asleep running her hands through his hair.

In the morning, Rose was halfway through making the greasiest breakfast she could manage when she heard a clang and crash from her bedroom. She raced to find the Doctor on his hands and knees having kicked the garbage in an attempt to get up. Just in time she grabbed the trash and brought his head to it, rubbed his back as he heaved.

When he finally sat up, forehead beaded with sweat, the Doctor looked at Rose, clearly in misery. "I'm dying," he stated with absolute conviction. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the bed as she rubbed his shoulder.

"You'll live," she replied, putting the trash in between his legs where he sat and going back to tend breakfast.

A while later Rose sat him at the table with hash browns, eggs and sausage, a bottle of aspirin and a tall glass of water. Her comm buzzed seconds afterward, the Doctor ducking his head at the noise, and she dressed to go into work.

"Lots of water, got that?" She told him softly as she knelt next to his chair before leaving.

"Yeah," he whispered.

"Have a shower, it'll help," she continued and caught the ghost of a smile on his lips as she saw him remember her advice about showers weeks ago, "then back to bed, yeah?"

"Thanks," he said and she kissed his forehead, her lips lingering against his skin before she looked his face over once more and left.

The Doctor did as he was told, still unconvinced as he crawled back into Rose's bed that he wasn't dying.


	10. Something You Can Have

Hey folks, thanks for the reviews. Seemed to have touched a bit of a nerve with the last chapter so I must be doing something right.

Far as I can figure, the Doc's always been a bit of a cad, especially 10, and anyone wanting to spend their lives with him would have to find a way to live with that. I think a strong, slightly more mature version of Rose would've been able to stick it and it would've looked something like this. I also wanted to go for something a little more interesting than garden variety jealousy with Rose and the Doc.

As for the Doc being a little gay, well, who isn't. You're all right in that he's been months stewing in humany-wumany hormones and maybe getting drunk gave him the perfect out to do what Rose did back a few chapters.

All that being said, I hope I pull this chapter off to some of your satisfaction. Devil knows I enjoyed writing it!

-#-

Torchwood Tower was alive with activity again on January second. Donna arrived at work a minute ahead of Rose and the Doctor, smiled at Rose as she approached the lineup to go past the metal/human detectors at the front desk.

"How are you?" Donna asked, noticing as she did so the Doctor being waylaid by Peter at the front door.

"Top of the world," Rose replied easily, "you?"

"Fine," Donna replied, frowning as Peter touched the Doctor's arm timidly and the Doctor slung his own about Peter's shoulders like he usually did. "An' him?" She nodded toward the front doors and Rose followed her line of sight.

"Oh, sick as a dog yesterday but all better now. Doesn't remember a thing about the party." Rose said airily enough as the Doctor approached them, his arm still about Peter who was red as a firebell and grinning from ear to ear.

" _You didn't_ _tell 'im, did ya_?" Donna seethed, glaring at Rose as it dawned on her.

Rose didn't look the least bit remorseful. "I have taken that man shopping, set up home for him, walked him through getting' a bank account, how to eat and sleep like a human bein' and helped him deal with hormones an' havin' only one heart. Honestly, Donna? I'm delegatin' to ya." Donna looked at Rose indignantly. "Good luck," Rose said as the Doctor arrived at the line, bright eyed and clueless.

"Hallo, Donna! Happy new year!" The Doctor said chipperly, grinning at his best friend.

Donna sighed.

-#-

"So, John, um, what do you say to just, um, you and me, for lunch," Peter asked as they rode the lift up to Tech two.

"Oh! Let's go to that place you took us, whotsitcalled, where they had those incredible fried bananas!" The Doctor babbled at at him as Donna looked on in stony silence.

"Bar None?" Peter asked.

"That's it!" The Doctor roared delightedly.

"Sure, we...we can go there," Peter replied much more quietly, smiling still.

They left the lifts and the Doctor and Donna proceeded to the Shed, the Doctor completely carefree with his hands in his pockets. He flicked on the lights and Donna surveyed their main work table, usually notable by the fact that it had some measure of the top of it visible, unlike the rest. Bits and pieces of tech littered the floor about it and the table had the largest swatch of free space it had seen since the Doctor moved in.

"We've had some cowboys in here," the Doctor said, stooping to collect the detritus on the floor. "Some of the party must've come looking for the spare drinks."

Donna rolled her eyes at him and woke up the computer she normally worked at, fidgeting with the mouse as she wondered how to go about talking to her friend. She wandered over to where he stood sonicing at a bit of cable sticking out from the Bruxcan sound system, glasses on to survey the work.

"Rose said you were pretty rough after the party," Donna began.

The Doctor grinned, "yeah," he turned to Donna in all seriousness, flicked off his sonic, "did you know alcohol had such pronounced effects on the human autonomic nervous system? Blimey." He returned to sonicing.

"Yeah, had my nervous system done in by a few too many pints before," Donna muttered.

"Lucky for me Rose was there," the Doctor murmured and Donna glared at him, thinking of Rose's face when she'd heard the Doctor and Peter.

"Bloody right, lucky she was there," and Donna walloped him across the arm.

"OI!" The Doctor growled, glaring at Donna. "What was that for?"

"You stupid martian," Donna hissed, "you've probably never told her what she means t'ya, have you?"

A spark of confusion crept into the Doctor's glare. "What are you on about?"

Stepping so she was nose to nose with him, Donna pointed a finger in his face. "You don't remember what you did at the party."

Eyes dancing around their periphery, the Doctor tried to think of what she was talking about. "'Course I do! I..." he recalled the earlier parts of the night, specifically dancing with Rose and the way she had laughed like her old self. "I danced with Rose," he smiled but quickly dropped it when Donna looked like she might hit him for it. "Um, uh, I...I danced with you, made some _fantastic_ banana daiquiris, if I don't say so meself...um...OH! HA! Peter kissed me at midnight!" He grinned and Donna tilted her head side to side as she took out her phone, quietly agreeing that that had been as funny as the Doctor thought it was.

Flicking through photos, she brought up the one she had snapped of the Doctor and Peter locked in a passionate kiss and showed it to her friend. Initially grinning, a hint of uncertainty creased the Doctor's brow as he looked at the picture. Donna leaned in to look at his face intently. "That ringin' any bells, spaceman?"

The Doctor looked into the middle distance as flashes of Peter came to his mind, of the both of them in much more compromising positions than the one Donna had on her phone. His eyes drifted over to the main work table, growing wider as they did so. "Oh," he said quietly.

His eyes flicked back to Donna to find her staring at him like she might hit him again. "Oh? That's it? _OH_?!" She said sternly but the Doctor began to giggle. "Whot are you laughin' for?"

"Weeell, s'kinda funny to think, innit? Me and Peter, havin' a go? Ha!" He laughed harder and went back to the cable he was working at before Donna belted him again.

"THAT IS NOT FUNNY!" She roared and the Doctor stepped back from her, rubbing his arm, sore now from multiple assaults.

"What?" The Doctor asked, genuinely perplexed.

"What about Peter? What about Rose?" Donna said, quieter now lest anyone was listening after the racket they had made. She doubted they would pay much mind, though, sounds of her hitting the Doctor and him griping about it were commonly heard from the Shed.

Still, the Doctor looked at her like she was speaking a language that he didn't know, which for him, would have been incredibly dumbfounding. "What about them?"

"Peter is in love w'ya, ya alien sod," Donna said slowly, as thought talking to a very thick child.

" _Nooo_ ," the Doctor frowned then looked at Donna suspiciously. She had taken him aside so many times in the past few months to point out to him when he was doing such alien things as being inconsiderate of other people's feelings or when he was being indifferent to someone's suffering that he didn't understand. When Hasrat and her boyfriend of two years broke up, Donna had smacked him when he snorted at two years, saying that was nothing. "Is this...one of those things with humans where you know a lot more than me?"

"Pretty much," Donna said, slightly mollified by the dawning remorse in the Doctor's eyes. "And I don't think he thought what happened at the party was funny, Doctor. I think he thought it meant somethin' to ya." She said, more kindly as all mirth left the Doctor's features and the age that hid in the back of his eyes showed.

Kicking at the ground with the toe of his plimsolls, the Doctor eventually said, "he's not inviting me out to lunch for fried bananas, is he?"

"No, sweetheart," Donna confirmed.

The Doctor rubbed at his face, sighed heavily and walked out of the Shed.

-#-

The Doctor was nothing if not observant, so long as he was on his guard. Around people he trusted, he rarely was and this may have been the reason he failed to see Peter's clumsy attempts at a seduction. That, or the fact that where romance was concerned, the Doctor had been blinkered when it came to anyone else save Rose.

At any rate, he walked from Torchwood Tower into the plaza at Canary Wharf with his hands deliberately stuffed in his pockets to avoid any move on Peter's part to secure them. He was observing Peter then. The shy looks he cast the Doctor, how he fidgeted, stammered. If the Doctor thought back, he couldn't recollect Peter being quite that nervous around anyone else.

As the Doctor bought them coffee at the snooty cafe across from the Tower, he could tell by the way Peter was holding himself and directing the conversation that he was excited. The Doctor sighed internally, _probably thought I just couldn't wait until lunch_.

They sat on one of the benches that looked out at the docks, Peter sitting deliberately close to the Doctor, his hands wrapped about his coffee in the cold.

"Peter," the Doctor began, hating the uncertainty he saw grow in his friend's face at his tone, "I was... _completely_ arseholed at the party."

Laughing to relieve some tension, Peter nodded, "yeah, safe to say we both were, eh?"

"Yes," the Doctor conceded, rubbing at the back of his neck, "but in your case, I think it made you brave...and in mine...it just made me daft."

Peter was most assuredly not daft, the Doctor knew, as the other man took his hand and looked up to him resignedly. "What are you saying?"

"Oh, Peter," the Doctor said with a shake of his head and a squeeze of the other man's hand, "I... shouldn't have shagged you."

Slipping his hand from the Doctor's, Peter stuffed it protectively in his pocket and frowned at the pavement. "Not this again."

"How do you mean?" The Doctor asked and Peter gave him the angriest look the Doctor had ever seen the other man give. All things considered, Peter being Peter, it was still fairly contained.

"You're another one of those blokes who can't face that they're queer. Shouldn't have shagged me, eh? 'Cause you're not like that, am I right?" Peter said, a hint of fire in his words.

It broke the Doctor's heart how gentle his friend was. He smiled just a little, "Peter, no...I don't...I don't regret the sex...I mean, the sex was brilliant, far as I can recall, I mean, _reeally, really_ _good_ ," he said with a surprising amount of force and Peter blushed despite himself. The Doctor rubbed his face, "no, I don't regret the shag Peter, not any part of it," he reiterated, shaking his head, "I regret that I don't feel about you how I think you feel about me."

Nausea crept up on the Doctor as he saw tears threaten in Peter's eyes at his words.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry Peter," he said softly.

Standing abruptly, Peter looked away from the Doctor casually in order to hide the tears he wiped from his face. "Well," he said shakily for wont of anything else.

"Peter," The Doctor called to him but the other man only stopped, didn't turn. "I never thanked you for everything you've done for me this year." When Peter failed to turn around or otherwise acknowledge him, the Doctor said softly, "so thank you," and after a beat, "Take the day. I'll clear it with Bad Wolf."

A stiff nod at that and Peter walked from him.

-#-

The Doctor walked into the Shed and proceeded to disassemble what looked like a large printer that had been meticulously wrapped in copper wire. His movements were perfunctory and Donna watched him a minute before she spoke. "How is he?"

"Oh, y'know," the Doctor answered immediately. "had his heart ripped apart by a thick Time Lord who clearly can't function in any kind of human society without harming anyone, let alone his friends, let alone one of the only people who didn't look at me like I had a third eye. He's _fantastic_ ," the Doctor said, his words steeped in self loathing.

Laying a hand on his shoulder, at which the Doctor stopped ripping apart the machine infront of him, Donna said, "he'll get over it."

"He shouldn't have to, should he? I'm 900 years old, I should've known, I should've seen." The Doctor sniffed and went back to eviscerating the bit of tech, disgusted with himself and his human simplicity.

Even though he was still glaring, Donna added, "Rose knows," and the Doctor shook his head as though annoyed by a fly buzzing about.

"She wouldn't care," he said quietly.

"How can you say that?" Donna said, voice higher with indignation, looked her friend's silent profile over before continuing. "Have you ever told her how you feel about her?"

At that the Doctor looked sharply aside at her. "Rose knows," he replied coldly but something in the look in Donna's eyes made him second guess himself.

Eventually Donna walked away from him and worked at the computer a while before she said, softly, "does anyone really know with you?"

The Doctor paused, then swallowed down the ache her words had caused to bud in his chest.

-#-

He was sitting in her office chair with his feet on her desk when she came in and Rose unceremoniously pushed them off. "Someone's havin' a hump. What's the matter?" She asked as the Doctor stood aside to let her wrap up on the computer.

The Doctor didn't respond and Rose changed tack. "Trip in the Rdis?"

"Nah," the Doctor shrugged.

"Now I know somethin's wrong," Rose half joked.

The Doctor leaned against the doorjamb, hands in his pockets. "I just want to go home and... pretend for a few hours that I'm human," he said dejectedly and Rose frowned at him.

"Sounds a bit dull for ya," she commented offhandedly.

"Could do with a bit of dull at the moment," he replied, shoulders hung ever so slightly.

Waiting until they had the privacy of the jeep, Rose tried to draw him out. "You know, another thing about bein' human, suspect it's true of Time Lords but you'd never cop to it," Rose muttered the second half of her sentence, "helps to talk 'bout what's botherin' ya."

Still, he sat and fidgeted for several seconds before finally saying, "Rose I...I," and he groaned in discomfort and frustration.

"You shagged Peter?" Rose supplied and the Doctor rubbed his face before looking aside at her with a frown.

"Donna was right, you did know," he said with a hint of accusation. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Rose shrugged as they pulled out of the traffic circle onto Kent Road and she shifted up. "Donna knows you and Peter. What was I gonna say that she wouldn't have said a billion times better?"

"Rubbish," the Doctor muttered, crossing his arms and staring out the side window. He felt wounded by what he perceived as her allowing him to be ambushed by the whole scenario.

"B'sides, I was a little busy makin' sure you didn't get sick in your hair," she said reasonably and the Doctor sighed heavily, fairly convinced that he couldn't feel like any more of an arse that day.

When he was silent for a few minutes Rose piped back in, "how is Peter?"

The Doctor shook his head, frustrated. "I dunno, not like I would, would I? You tell me, as a human being-"

"My whole life, yeah." Rose interjected.

"-how would you feel? Someone you fancy shags you then tells you it was a mistake?"

Keeping her eyes on the road, Rose could still feel him staring hard at her. She couldn't help but remember the things he had tried to do and say when she took him home after the party. She hadn't told him and part of her wondered if it was because she didn't want to face his denial of it, if that was how he reacted, like Peter had had to.

"I'd be heartbroken," she said simply and winced when she heard him sigh heavily.

The Doctor was quiet the rest of the way home and Rose wasn't sure what to say to him that she suspected Donna hadn't said already. For his part, the Doctor was still hung up on what Donna had said about Rose.

As they slammed the jeep doors the Doctor finally blurted, "Donna said something to me today and...she's usually right about these things..." he said haphazardly as they began to climb the stairs to their flat, Rose ahead of him. "She thinks...maybe you don't know how I...feel about you." He finished softly, apprehensive until he heard Rose chuckle as she unlocked the door. "What?" He demanded, a little peeved as he shut the door behind him and Rose turned to face him, taking off her jacket.

She smirked at him. "Well, no one really does w'you, do they?" At the look he gave her words, a near verbatim repeat of Donna's, Rose was quick to add, "you're kind of rubbish with words, Doctor," but this didn't help.

Indignant at the very suggestion, the Doctor rushed to defend himself. "I am brilliant with words! I can recite thousands of poems from the Tang Dynasty! The peace vows of the Calamod Warriors! The Sonorous Hymns of the Magrasami tribes of the Mountains of Gol Amut-"

"Yeah? And what do you say to your friends, the people ya love?" Rose cut him off and stared hard at him. "'You're brilliant' or 'you're fantastic' or 'you're beautiful.' Same way you talk about a...a new species you come across...or... or some bit a' tech you find fascinatin.'"

The Doctor's face had dropped and Rose hated how forlorn he looked. "Look," she tried to joke, "the only time you ever good as said you loved me, yeah? A Dalek said it for ya and you just didn't deny it." Rose finished smiling but quickly stopped when the Doctor didn't reciprocate.

She ran a hand through her hair and turned from him. "I'll get on tea, yeah?"

The Doctor could only stand staring at her, his hands in his pockets. "Even you," he whispered. A sudden flash of anger burned through him, born of frustration at himself and the impossibility of being human.

 _What use are emotions if you will not save the woman you love?_

He strode to her with a few footfalls, spun her roughly about by the elbow to face him, and kissed her. This wasn't soft and loving as their Christmas kiss, not bruising and stiff as the one she had planted on him on Boring three, nor fast and shocking as when he'd kissed her in thanks for Donna. It was the kind of kiss that stole your breath and set your heart racing and once she was done being shocked by it, Rose couldn't stop herself from returning the favour. Her hands gripped his back, brought them closer as his caressed her cheek, firmly tipped her head to give his tongue the access it sought. For a minute their animal brains were fully in charge and they struggled to breathe and maintain the kiss.

Then Rose keyed into the frustration that was simmering in the Doctor, his anger and hurt at what he had done to Peter, and his inability to speak plainly with her. Underneath all of that was a hint of desperation the root of which she couldn't quite fathom.

Rose broke the kiss, and laid her head against the Doctor's chest, one hand gripping his bicep, the other on the back of his neck. She tried to regain her breath, watched as his chest moved as fast as hers.

 _I don't have the words for you_ , she heard in his mind and alongside it the heartbreak the thought inspired.

"This isn't how you do it either, Doctor," she whispered to him and felt his frustration again, heard Martha's proclamation that he was a rubbish human as it ripped through his psyche.

Wanting to hold him, Rose reached after the Doctor when he stepped away from her, turning and worrying at the back of his neck as he did so. She returned to preping them tea, her mind listening to the self flagellation he was mentally subjecting himself to.

They ate in silence, the Doctor offering one words answers to the few questions Rose threw at him before giving up. He rose from the table and worked at the dishes before Rose had finished and she chomped down on her fork, mildly irritated with him. She had a pretty good idea of what he was up to when he said he was going out for a run once he'd finished the dishes.

"All right," was all she said, watched him leave and readied herself for a late night.

Around ten she turned off the lights in the flat and went to her room. Tempted though she was to simply listen to the Tardis crystal, Rose knew it would put her to sleep in seconds after a day of work. So she messed about on her computer, looking at the photos the Halbarrow satellite had recently beamed to the Tower, then doing some online shopping for her mum.

As it was approaching 11, she heard the front door crack and Rose whispered a thanks to Time. Still, she waited to see if the run had done the Doctor some good, listened as he showered. When he didn't come out of his room for ten minutes afterward, Rose extricated herself from the blankets of her own bed and walked to his room.

No light shone from under his door as Rose suspected and she went in.

"Rose?" The Doctor called when he heard his door.

"S'just me, s'okay," she said softly in return, climbed under the covers and sat with her back against his headboard, her thigh pressed to his back. He was curled up tightly on his side and she slipped an arm across his chest, rested her palm near his heart.

"If ya don't feel like sleepin' with me ya can always just say," she began and felt him shift. She knew and felt from him that that wasn't really the case, he would've preferred to sleep next to her. "An' if you were still upset, I still would've listened." Yet again he squirmed, a tightness emanating from him.

After a few minutes, the Doctor sighed and sat up next to Rose, flicked on the bedside light. "Does it bother you?"

"What, these huffy tantrums you have on occasion? They're a little immature, but-" She smiled in jest but his face was still stony. "Does what bother me?"

"That...the fact that I am, for all intents and purposes, basically...emotionally immature." In his eyes was the age that crept out on occasion and Rose understood what was making it show then.

She slipped her hand into his and they rested atop their legs. "It would...if it didn't bother you." When his face pinched with perplexity she tried again, "it's not like you're being an ass and not caring how it might affect people, Doctor. Your intentions are good."

A sneer at himself stole across the Doctor's face, displeased, but Rose shook her head at him. "I'm serious," she said as she tugged at his hand to draw his attention. Once again his stormy eyes found hers. "We all cock our relationships up, it's a very human thing. We say the wrong things, we do the wrong things. Leavin' my mum thinkin' I was missin' for a year-"

"I had a lot to do with that-" he tried to interrupt but Rose jabbed at him with her elbow, saw some of his mood simmer down.

"An' the way I treated Mickey...if there was a prize in fuckin' things up with people closest to ya..." Rose let out a laugh at herself as she looked at the ceiling a moment and the corner of the Doctor's mouth twitched just so.

"This is the hard stuff and no one ever gets it right all the time," she continued when their eyes met again, "especially not someone who's been running from it their whole life."

Wryly, the Doctor smiled at her for just a second. "There's hope for me, then?"

" _Yes_ ," Rose replied firmly. "It'll get easier for you, promise."

After a minute of their eyes searching one another's, Rose leaned in and kissed him, the very edge of her tongue meeting his momentarily before she drew back. In his mind, she felt him wrestle with the pure arousal he felt. "Thought you said that wasn't how it was done," he said, voice a little high.

Rose smiled into his cheek, "that's not _only_ how it's done." When she looked into his eyes she saw him stamping down the physical urge for them to just have at it. For the first time she properly appreciated what his hormones had been doing to him and perhaps what they might've had to do with his fling with Peter. She tugged at his hair. "I want your words, too," she whispered and was pleased when she felt how strongly he wanted to please her on that front, whatever his body was craving.

"I know that...I can't run anymore...but I don't want to either...not from you," the Doctor said quietly, hoping against hope his clumsy statement would sound to Rose's ears the way he felt it burn in his chest.

She smiled winningly at him. "There...those were good words."

Reaching across him, Rose flicked out the light and focused on easing his mind with her own, the mental equivalent of a back rub. She was pleased with herself when she felt it work, felt him drift to unconsciousness. After he had, she cautiously prodded about in his mind, wary of overstepping her bounds but curious never the less. There was a hub dedicated to her she could distinguish in the vast expanse that was the Doctor. It was open for the most part, brimming with memories, the majority of them exciting feelings of contentment and glee in him. In the periphery of this hub were a few that made Rose's chest ache with the sadness they evoked and she shied away from them.

Another area felt very guarded by him and Rose was surprised, as she lingered at it's limits, to realise that it was shame he felt around them. Prodding a little further, the feelings changed dramatically and Rose knew it was arousal these thoughts instilled in the Doctor.

She didn't delve into the details of his thoughts on the matter, respecting the boundaries in his mind as she would want him to respect her privacy around certain subjects. All she had wanted was to confirm that she hadn't been reading into the little things, that he did desire her. She found she was nervous at the prospect of taking that next step with him, so much so that it reached him in his slumber and he shifted, agitated by the feeling.

Rose rubbed at the Doctor's back until he quieted again and carefully slid up mental blocks around her unease. It settled in her mind that they were ready for this. Ready for the repercussions whatever they might be and to move beyond what they had been to each other on the Tardis. She was ready to acknowledge to him that she was not as human in mind and soul as she was in body. Her hope was that the meeting of their human bodies might make the joining of their minds possible as it would have been between two Time Lords. Thanks to his drunken admissions, she already knew he craved that and the knowledge had made her want to believe in its possibility.

-#-

" **Bad Wolf, Blue Turtle here. Do you have a minute?** "

The seconds distraction caused Rose to overshoot her landing and fall six feet over the ledge she had been aiming for. Rolling, she got to her knees, fired a few shots at her target but missed the personnel that had been waiting beyond the ledge. She got the butt of a rifle to her jaw for her trouble. Five minutes of wrestling, a flashbang and a leg aching sprint later, Rose found cover long enough to chew out three words into her comm.

"I'll find you."

It was easier that way. In any given day at the tower, Rose usually climbed it top to bottom no less than four times, made a round of the circumference on various floors no less than 18 times and departed the planet all together once a week. Peter could be found at the first bench you came to on Tech two fives days a week, nine am to five pm.

She found him there at half past four. After the first few people looked up at her voice, everyone else followed in short order. Because no one could stop staring.

Rose was covered in grime, her blonde hair tucked back in a pony tail, her tight black t-shirt torn at the sleeve and her black jeans ripped at the knees, exposing the bleeding flash beneath. A purple bruise on her jaw completed the look.

"What d'ya want?" She asked Peter who gaped at her. "Peter, I'm fairly certain I have you to thank for this bruise, d'ya wanna get on with it?" She said when his silence persisted.

"Sorry," he managed with the prompt, standing and running a hand through his hair. "Can we, um, can we talk somewhere else?" He finished quietly, clearly wishing he wasn't overheard though a pin drop could've been heard in the room in that instant.

"Why the hell is it so bloody quiet?" Donna's voice rang out along with the music from the Doctor's sound system when the Shed door opened.

Peter closed his eyes, clearly unhappy with the way things were going. Rose noted this, and the way his face screwed up when the Doctor's voice joined Donna's.

"Blimey, it is quiet. Everything all right?"

"Please, can we go," Peter said desperately and Rose was beginning to see notes on the wall. They were too late of course, to leave without the Doctor seeing them. Everyone was looking in their direction.

"Rose?" The question in his tone was one sixth disbelief that it was really her and five sixths that she could look as bad as she did. "What happened?" He asked, a snarl in his tone and features as he looked her damage over.

"Command recerts," she said indifferently. "I'm fine. I need to talk to Peter," she said brusquely and watched as the Doctor looked to the other man before her while Peter avoided his gaze.

"Right," the Doctor said, stepping back, hands slipping into his pockets.

"Get your coat," Rose motioned to Peter and marched back toward the stairs, Peter trotting to catch up with her.

Almost as soon as they were on the front steps of Torchwood Tower, Peter blurted out, "I'd like a transfer," and Rose's suspicions were confirmed. She said nothing, steered them toward the docks and they walked a while.

Suitably far from work, Rose stopped and put her boot on the railings that ran along the water. Peter watched as she plucked a fag and lighter from inside her ankle holster, lit up and recommenced walking.

"Aren't you cold?" He asked in amazement as they continued, marvelling at Rose's lack of a jacket in the January chill.

"Why d'ya want t'transfer?" Rose asked, ignoring Peter's question and pulling on her fag.

Peter hesitated. "I'm not finding Tech two to be a productive work environ-"

"Tech two has identical facilities to one and three, so it's your coworkers what's the problem. What is it? Who're ya havin' issues with?" She cut him off, wanting to cut through the unnecessaries. His answer surprised her.

"Is it a big joke to everyone?" Peter said quietly, stopping, his words forcing Rose to stop also and look at him, narrowing her eyes as she took a drag.

She walked to him and noted how he fidgeted under her gaze. "No one else knows and I only know because Donna n'me walked in on the two a' ya." Rose said this quietly, much more gently than she had ever spoke to Peter or anyone else who worked at Torchwood. "He's not having a laugh about it behind your back, if that's what you're thinkin'."

"You sure about that?"

"Yes," Rose answered immediately and with force.

"I just don't think I can work with him anymore," Peter whispered, his normally placid features shot through with anxiety.

"Peter," Rose smiled as she said his name, "you're one of the best techs I have. I didn't put ya on the floor I worked for nothin' and I didn't assign ya to the Doctor his first day on a lark." Peter flushed at this and Rose took a drag. "He makes people live up to their fullest potential, the Doctor, an' if ya can get past this, I know you'll do great along side 'im."

Peter wrapped his arms around himself, shifted his feet. "I liked him the moment I saw him...and he hasn't seen me this entire time," he said softly, "has he?"

Once more, Rose smiled at Peter and for the first time realised what it was the Doctor saw in him, apart from the fact that he was brilliant. He was kind, was the sort to offer up his heart unquestioningly, an act of recklessness worthy of the Doctor himself.

"I know how he gets under your skin," she confided, "until it seems like he's your whole world, the air ya breath, the water ya drink. But one day you realise all he's done is point out what you were missing and run with ya to find it. What you're missing, Peter? It isn't him and trust me, he's seen ya this entire time."

Peter frowned at Rose but she didn't elaborate further, just tossed her fag to the pavement and crushed it with the heel of her boot. "I'll never turn down a request for reassignment if someone's uncomfortable with who they're workin' with, but I don't think you should move Peter. Don't run from this, from him. You'll both be worse off if ya do." She gave him a minute before she asked, "so what'll it be?"

The hardening that took place behind Peter's eyes was something Rose was familiar with. Everyone who loved the Doctor, thought he was was the stuff of fairy tales, eventually grew up.

"I'd like to rescind my request...if you think that's best," Peter said eventually and Rose nodded.

"I really do." Then Rose did something she never did anymore and poked her tongue out between her teeth just at the corner of her mouth, garnering a surprised laugh from Peter. She thumped him on the arm as they turned back. "Come on, Blue Turtle."

"For the record, he talks about you all the time," Rose said as they neared the Tower.

"Yeah?" Peter asked, looking aside at her.

"You're his best mate," Rose supplied, knowing she was doing some of the Doctor's talking for him but not caring in that moment.

"Nah," Peter denied, "that's Donna."

Rose shook her head, held the door open for him. "She's more like family, me too, comes to it. You're his friend, have been since he got here, even when the whole rest of sciences wouldn't talk to him." Peter had nothing to say to this and Rose let him be until they were about to enter Tech two from the stairwell.

"Just keep it in mind, yeah?" Rose said, hand on the door and eyes boring into Peter. "Don't shut him out...but don't let him be the sun and the stars for ya."

Before Rose could open the door, Peter boldly placed his hand over hers and held it closed. "Like he isn't for you anymore?" He asked doubtfully and Rose eyed him a second before replying.

"No, he isn't. Most of what Torchwood is I made after I lost him, Peter. I figure if you've managed to make your life outside a' him when he disappears on ya, it'll be easier for ya."

Peter narrowed his eyes at her. " _When_ he disappears?"

Rose tilted her head to the side, "bit a' truth I wish I'd known before I met him," and she opened the door as though Peter's full weight hadn't been on it.

"Smith!" Rose bellowed into Tech two, once again silencing the floor.

"What is it now!?" The Doctor whined, leaning out of the Shed.

Rose marched up to him and yanked his face down to her level by his tie. She winked at him and the Doctor raised a brow at her.

 _Take Peter up in the Rdis tonight. DON'T make it seem like a date, be very clear about that._

The Doctor frowned at her. _He isn't even speaking to me right now_.

 _Just...give it a go, yeah?_

Within his mind, the Doctor felt Rose's strength and belief in the suggestion buoy him and he smiled.

"You got it, Bad Wolf," _thank you_.

A smirk and she let him go, her face returning to its usual impassibility as she walked past the Tech workers. The Doctor watched her go, hands in his pocket, a grin slowly seeping onto his face.

-#-

At quarter past five, Peter got up from his work bench and walked to the stairwell with a nod to the worker who sat the table next to him. The Doctor exited the Shed at almost the exact same moment, timed it so the stairwell door just closed behind him as he called out Peter's name. Peter looked up at him from five steps down, wary.

"I've got something I want to share with you...as mates," the Doctor said, unable to keep the gleam from his eye at the prospect.

"John, I..." Peter attempted to beg off but the Doctor descended to the step above him and held his gaze.

"Think of it as an apology...the best one I could ever come up with."

Standing infront of the Rdis after he'd just ripped its tarpaulin off, the Doctor grinned at the perplexed look on Peter's face. Peter stood a safe distance from the Doctor, his backpack slung over one shoulder.

"Is this a joke?" He finally asked.

"Oh, no!" The Doctor said, a manic glint in his eye. "See, that's what I love about you Peter. Never once asked what planet I was from or what my squiggley alien spaceship was like or where it was. You always just treated me like one of your mates."

"Well you..." Peter caught himself, smiled at his feet and shrugged. "You are," he finished, choosing his tenses deliberately.

The Doctor caught it and unable to smile any more broadly, simply turned and unlocked the Rdis. "This is who I am, Peter." He held open the door and looked back at Peter.

Shaking his head, Peter was in the midst of saying "John, it's a," when the Doctor slipped his sonic out of his jacket pocket and pointed it inside.

"Box," Peter finished quietly as the lights inside the Rdis hummed on. "Oh my god," he whispered, stepping up to the doors, eyes impossibly wide, then stepping back to make a round of the outside.

The Doctor was grinning, still leant against the Rdis's side when Peter returned to the doors. "That's not even the best part," he said and walked inside. Peter only hesitated a second before following, circumnavigating the console in wonder, the Doctor watching him as he did so.

Eventually, Peter's eyes fell to the console and he dove at it, eyes ripping to and fro over the various controls before he ducked underneath the main boards. "This is incredible! That's a Ramarchian nav-catalogue but..."

"But so much better," the Doctor supplied, likewise peering underneath the controls of his ship.

"And...that looks like the filter for an inter-Q space slip drive but..." Peter looked at the Doctor like a man possessed.

"But different and also better," the Doctor said, a little smug.

"This ship is impossible," Peter said with awe.

The Doctor sniffed with self satisfaction as they stood, "more like improbable. Where do you wanna go?"

"What?" Peter asked, genuine concern etching his features.

Gripping Peter by the shoulder's, the Doctor looked him over, eyes dancing. "You joined Torchwood because you dreamt of the stars and aliens and planets, all those improbable things! Where did you start dreaming?"

Jaw twitching in hesitation, something cracked behind Peter's eyes and he finally whispered, "Orion."

The Doctor thumped him on the shoulder and roared, "Orion, nu quadrant, allons-y!" He flicked levers and spun dials and the Rdis lurched for a moment and then was still.

Hanging off the side rails, Peter was fixated on the Doctor as the other man grinned at him before levelling his hand in the direction of the door. Peter shook his head. "Our best ships couldn't make it anywhere close to Orion in two weeks."

"Torchwood's best ships," the Doctor corrected him, stuffing his hands in his pockets and walking to the doors, "not _ours_." He flung open the doors and a massive blue plume of gas glowed before them in the dark, a red star visible at the heart of it some distance away. Then he watched as Peter walked slowly toward him, eyes wide and mouth open. "That's Betelgeuse," the Doctor said softly and Peter began laughing, bringing a hand to his forehead as he did so.

"It's his shoulder!" Peter cheered, almost hysterical.

The Doctor nodded, smiling at the unbridled wonder he saw in Peter's eyes. "Yep," he popped the 'p', "that's his shoulder." As he watched his friend, the Doctor appreciated that Rose hadn't told him to take Peter up just for Peter's sake. He was being reminded that he wasn't just human and that wasn't a bad thing at all.

After a while, Peter shook his head, "can I sit?"

Falling lightly to his arse in the doorway, the Doctor patted the patch of Rdis next to him and Peter hesitantly lowered himself down, cautiously slipped his feet over the edge to dangle next to the Doctor's. "You're even more incredible than I thought," he said aside to the Doctor, awe in his features as he stared at the other man. The Doctor only shrugged. "Can I ask you now...where are you from?"

The Doctor took a deep breath that just fell short of sigh. "If this were my universe...it would've been a long, long way from here," he said, not meaning to be evasive. When he realised he had been just that, the Doctor added, "it was called Gallifrey, in the constellation of Kasterborus." Peter shook his head and frowned and the Doctor nodded, "yeah, part of space you lot haven't even heard of yet."

"And you had this technology, your people?" Peter asked with a glance back at the Rdis controls.

The Doctor raised a brow. "Had better than this, didn't we? We were Time Lords, Peter, we guarded time."

In silence, Peter thought about this for a long time and didn't ask the questions the Doctor expected. "This ship has...barely half the technology you claim to be capable of...the sensors at the front desk don't go off on you...and the medics in the infirmary patched you up...you're not quite a Time Lord anymore, are you?"

The Doctor had to remark to himself at how clever Peter was. "No, not quite, Peter."

"Was I right then," Peter asked, leaning aside on the door frame, "that you're not here by choice?"

Likewise leaning on the door, the Doctor shrugged. "We all make choices. Those I made brought me here, one way or another."

"Made you half human-"

"More than half," the Doctor corrected.

"So how did that happen?" Peter asked with a laugh and the Doctor shook his head at him.

"You got bloody Betelgeuse smack dab in front of you and you want to hear how I wound up as a glorified cubicle monkey?" The Doctor asked with incredulity as he gestured out to the star before them.

"I've got half an alien from a part of space human beings haven't even discovered yet who knows about technology that's more advanced than anything I've ever dreamed of before. Yeah," Peter confirmed with a laugh, "I want to know how you wound up a cubicle monkey."

Hovering around Orion's shoulder, the Doctor told Peter a fairy tale about Daleks and the Bad Wolf, Donna and the Doctor. Peter hung off his every word and not because it was the Doctor speaking.

-#-

Rose couldn't help but be surprised at herself and the nervous quiver in her stomach as she stepped into Tech two. The entirety of her day had been an exercise in overcoming distraction as she thought about the night ahead, the date she had planned for her and the Doctor. Usually, she was more focused. Usually, sex wouldn't have occupied her mind so completely as it had that day.

Outwardly she looked poised as she made her way to the back of the floor, seeming her normally inscrutable Bad Wolf self to the few science workers still at their benches. Inwardly she felt like a bloody school girl.

Working around primarily men in a field that saw you risking your life every other day, Rose had gotten used to dirty talk and innuendo, to being hit on and talk about who wanted who, how often and in what position. The boundaries she had put up between herself and the staff had precluded her acting on any opportunities that came her way at work, but her tryst with Henry had been entirely as Rose had wanted it. She was capable of talking about sex, having it and generally doing so in a very adult fashion.

But not, apparently, when it came to the Doctor.

He grinned at her when she knocked on the Shed's door frame and Rose's gut clenched.

"Whot're you doin' here?" Donna asked, perplexed, as the Doctor grabbed his coat and made to leave with Rose. Rose never met the Doctor at Tech two at the end of the day, and she was rarely finished at five.

"Just pickin' him up," Rose said, not managing to be any kind of smooth about it at all. Donna raised a brow at her evasiveness.

The Doctor leaned down to Donna's ear. "We've got a _date_ ," he said conspiratorially and winked at Rose.

Rose hated that she was blushing though it did help her to throw up her stony façade once more.

"A _date_ ," Donna said, eyeing Rose closely. "And what will you be doin' on this _date_?"

"Dunno!" The Doctor enthused, "it's a surprise!" He grinned at his friend from beside Rose.

Donna crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, more interested in Rose than ever. "So whot? You're takin' him out then?"

When Donna raised a brow at her, Rose couldn't keep the ghost of a smirk from the corner of her lips, as good as confessing her intentions. "Yeah," Rose said simply and knew that Donna was on to her by the way the other woman looked at her.

As though completely bored with the whole idea, Donna turned back to her computer. "Have fun then," she said dismissively.

Rose left, fighting a smile, the Doctor on her heels, grinning like an idiot.

An hour or so later, the Doctor was on his knees with his hand jammed under the couch cushions, tongue peeking out from between his lips as he searched beneath them. He growled in frustration and ducked his head to look under the couch.

"You all right?" He heard Rose ask from above him and lifted his head to reply.

"Can't find my bloody-" But the Doctor lost his voice before he could finish.

Rose had just come from her room fully dressed for the evening in a little black dress that left her shoulders bare. They were highlighted by the fact that her hair was up and wound seamlessly at the back of her head, two delicate golden earrings hanging down instead of her usual curtain of blonde hair. The dress left just enough to the imagination, the hem coming to her knees and the slit on the side letting her very well formed thigh just show through.

After the Doctor had been silent for a suitably long period of time, Rose smiled at him like she used to and stepped to within arms reach. "Words, Doctor," she prompted.

He swallowed and cleared his throat. "You are gorgeous, just...impossible you are," he said, finally smiling in kind at her.

Tongue poking at her top lip a second, Rose looked down at his feet then back up at him. "I'd say the same...but you seem to be missing a shoe, Doctor."

He frowned at her and ruffled his hair, "can't find me other shoe!" He confirmed and Rose laughed out loud at him, a proper sprightly, Rose Tyler laugh.

Joining him in the hunt, it was Rose who eventually found the Doctor's other white chuck tucked behind his vinyl collection. "How'd that get there?" The Doctor asked when she held it up for him and they both replied at the same instant, "Tony."

The restaurant was posh without giving up on fun. Framed prints of classic films were on every wall, signed by the actors who had starred in them. About to remark on how this was possibly the snootiest restaurant they had ever eaten at, the Doctor was distracted when he caught Rose chewing on her bottom lip. It was a sign of nervousness or playfulness she rarely indulged in these days.

Having caught his eyes lingering on her more than a few times during the drive, Rose asked, "Ya gonna stare at me all night, then?"

The Doctor shrugged, looked away casually. "Shouldn't have dressed like that if you didn't want me to."

Rose smirked as the receptionist asked them for the name of the reservation and showed them to their seats.

"Tonight we have a guest chef, Nilam Megat from the Kechik restaurant in Malaysia. She has prepared a four course meal inspired by the simple banana-"

"NO!" The Doctor said gutturally and Rose smiled into her shoulder as their waitress looked at the Doctor, afraid she had offended him.

"I'm...I'm sorry, sir?" The waitress stammered.

"You're kidding!" The Doctor said with glee, looking at Rose.

"Shut up and let her finish, will ya?" Rose chided him and their waitress, though confused, continued.

Once the waitress had, the Doctor declined to look at the regular menu. "Give me the banana experience," he enthused and the waitress smiled at him patiently before turning to Rose.

"The bass for me, an' a glass of the '92 gewürztraminer, please. Also, could ya let the kitchen know we have a show to catch?"

The waitress nodded and left, the Doctor leaning his elbow on the table and staring at Rose with his chin in his palm in her wake. "We're going to a show." All Rose did was raise a brow at him and he grinned. "And here I thought it was just appies, an entrée and desert," he finished, emphasising the last 't' in desert like he would any word, but it made Rose start at the perceived innuendo. She worried at her lip again.

"Are you all right?" The Doctor asked, seeing this and gently reaching out to her mind when he did.

"Fine, yeah?" Rose said too heartily, avoiding his eyes as she fought to seal off certain thoughts from him.

He stared at her for several minutes in which Rose struggled to maintain casual eye contact with him. "You'd tell me if something was wrong," he stated softly.

Rose looked gratefully at the waitress for bringing her wine in that moment and took a sip before responding. "Of course."

The fact that he babbled made dinner easier than Rose had worried it would be. He was the distraction that, funnily enough, she could have used to distract her from thoughts of him the rest of the day. She paid and ignored the significant look their waitress gave her when she did, the Doctor clueless to the exchange.

"The Solonos Orchestra," the Doctor read as they pulled into the Zetland Theatre parking lot. "We're going to the orchestra! Brilliant!"

Once more Rose had to laugh. She could feel that he was genuinely excited by their whole evening, the surprise of it all and happy to be spending it with her. She was grateful as she handed over her keys to the valet that they were managing this despite the fact that it was earth food they were eating and an earth orchestra they were going to listen to.

He offered her his arm and a charming smile and Rose took it, though she looked away, unable to meet his eyes.

"Excuse me, sir, this is a black tie event," the doorman informed them, a beefy palm blocking their way as they tried to enter.

The Doctor eyed the man curiously. "Yeah, this is me, in my black tie," he twitched at the bow tie about his throat. The doorman nodded at his shoes. "Oh! My kicks, don't worry, they're fancy," and he winked at the doorman.

"I'm sorry sir, I can't let you in with those," the doorman said and the Doctor looked indignantly at him, his mouth opening to deliver a tirade.

Before he could, Rose stepped between them and whispered into the doorman's ear, smiling aside at him and the Doctor's eyes grew wide when he saw her slip a few bills into the doorman's hand.

"Right, enjoy the show," the doorman smiled at them and the Doctor, mouth still agape and yearning to unleash his verbal fury was dragged away from him by Rose.

"You just greased him!" The Doctor hissed and Rose smiled, hugged his arm tighter. "You shouldn't have had to grease him, that was rubbish!" He complained until they were seated and Rose finally leaned over and shut him effectively up with a finger on his lips.

"I wanted ya here w'me, and I wanted ya in your kicks in your tux because I love the way you look in 'em." The Doctor had to swallow hard as she stroked his cheek. "Ya don't take yourself too seriously, don't let them get you in a hump over it." She settled back in her chair but kept her arm laced through his and eventually he followed suit, flipping through the program.

He snorted when he read 'contemporary' in a description of the music that would be performed and Rose just shook her head at him. Eyes on the program in his lap, the Doctor noticed that Rose was worrying at the corner of her clutch and he surreptitiously looked aside and caught her chewing her lip again. The lights about them dimmed just as the Doctor was about to remark on it.

Rose paid close attention to the Doctor's emotions as the music started and was pleased to feel his mind infused with wonder and delight by the performance. He had once taken her to see the Carcaralous Symphony, with music so varied, moving and forceful, that it had stuck with her through all the years and she paid attention whenever she heard anything like it. The Solonos Orchestra played contemporary orchestral arrangements that reminded Rose of that night with him so long ago. She could tell, as the Doctor leaned forward to drink it in, that it reminded him too.

The Doctor couldn't stop talking about it. They detoured to have a walk along the Thames in the frosty night air and all the while the Doctor spun about and gestured to act out his favourite parts. Rose followed, an easy smile on her lips, sometimes laughing, and infused with the joy he felt.

He hummed as she drove them home, drumming on his leg with his fingers. His mind was elsewhere as he hung up his coat in the doorway, bent down to work on his laces, when Rose called to him from her room.

"Can ya give us a hand?"

"In a tic," he replied, and succeeded in yanking off his plimsoll.

The Doctor swallowed and paused in the doorway when he saw Rose, her back to him, a hand holding back her hair that had been let down, exposing her neck. She looked over her shoulder at him and once their eyes met, his heart started to hammer. "Just with the zip," Rose said softly, and the Doctor's eyes focussed on the zipper that ran the length of the back of her dress.

"Right," he replied and walked to her, his hands hesitating before they gripped the top of the dress and the zipper. His eyes followed the progress the zip made and the flesh it exposed as it went, unable to focus chivalrously on the ground instead. It made him hesitate to move from her once his hands dropped, their task complete and Rose took the opportunity to slide the dress to the floor.

Swallowing hard, the Doctor finally averted his eyes and went to turn before her hand on his wrist stopped him. "Doctor," he heard Rose say softly as she drew him back round.

Once more his eyes betrayed him and he couldn't focus on her face to save his life. Her creamy skin cut through with various scars, the muscles that were hinted at by the light and shadows thrown by her bedside lamp. The simple black bra that offered up the swell of her breasts and the matching panties that still left her the most exposed the Doctor had ever seen her.

For her part, Rose flushed at the attention, watched how his chest rose and fell with speed as his eyes roamed her body. When the Doctor finally managed to meet her eyes, Rose smiled warmly at him to shift the unease she saw there. It was difficult to place, whether it was fear or shame or something else, let alone what the root of it was.

Rose doubted, somehow, that it was fear of the act itself. Sex was sex. Messy, ridiculous, wonderful but all basically the same and she had been privy to enough of his 900 years of memory to know he was familiar with the mechanics. It was the person on the other end of the messy, wonderful, ridiculousness that made it thrilling. Or nerve racking.

Dropping his hand, Rose lightly touched his belly and pushed him until he backed against her wall, his eyes still fighting to look at her and to look her over. Rose flipped up his collar and undid his bow tie.

"I fantasized 'bout doin' this, undressin' ya," she confessed, slipping his tie from around his neck and letting it drop to the floor. "You in your suit, takin' it off piece by piece," she continued, undoing the buttons of his suit jacket, sliding her hands up his chest to push the jacket off at his shoulders. "Must've been...three nights after you showed up at Christmas wearin' it for the first time, that suit." Button by button, she undid his shirt, appreciated how fast he was breathing as she exposed his chest. She stepped to within an inch of him to hold up his wrists and undo the buttons on them. "I was... _furious_ that Cassandra stole my first kiss with these lips," Rose said, dropping his hand as she looked at his mouth, parted slightly, and the fine grain of beard about it. The act of dragging his shirt from his shoulders pressed their chests together and the Doctor's breathing became audible. Stepping back half an inch, Rose let the shirt hang from his trousers as she reached for the button on them. "An' I was sore that I'd had my first and only kiss with that handsome man ya used to be not a week before," Rose said, the memory bittersweet, as she slipped his trousers from his hips, pleasantly noting that the swell in his boxers was already larger than normal.

The Doctor had been speechless the entire time, his mind completely overwhelmed with sensation. In the back of it, something was screaming, fighting to get past the human animal and only when his pants were around his ankles did that voice take hold.

"Rose," he said quietly, searching her eyes as she stepped toward him, her hands sliding up his chest. His jaw worked for a few moments, trying desperately to say what he knew he needed to.

"S'okay," Rose whispered in return, rising on the balls of her feet to kiss him.

His arms finally finding purpose, the Doctor reached up and grasped her jaw, deflected her so that they stood cheek to cheek and he could speak into her ear. "I want things from you that I don't know if I can have," he said desperately, and in his mind Rose heard whispers of Gallifreyan, of a ritual more permanent than the one she had had in mind for the evening.

Rose smiled, finally understanding the source of his hesitation. Into his ear she said firmly, "An' I know you want something from me that ya can have," and she pulled back and kissed him.

Her hands searched for every bare piece of skin she had never touched before and his went instantly to her hair, gripping locks of it as if in fear she would retreat and take her lips away from his. Whatever the Doctor's hesitations, they were drowned in that instant. He was overcome with desire for Rose as he felt her bra come loose, her breasts suddenly warm against his chest.

 _I can't...I can't...I can't_ , he stuttered in his mind and Rose understood from the chaos there that he was lost, completely unable to fathom any but his most basic, most human instincts.

 _Then don't_ , she replied and he picked her up, toppling them to the bed in an instant.

There was something about the fact that the Doctor couldn't even think straight enough to smoothly remove his pants and socks from where they had tangled about his ankles that Rose found comforting. It was familiar. He was clumsy, frantic, very un-Time Lord and it put her at ease. It was just them, in bed, grasping at each other for satisfaction.

After the struggle with his trousers, the Doctor waited just long enough for Rose to expose him with a tug on his boxers before forcing the crotch of her panties aside and entering her. They both froze, quivering, looking at eachother but so lost in their minds for an instant. The Doctor had felt the momentary stab of pain he had caused Rose and she had felt his spine-melting pleasure, both sensation equally intense. He hesitated to move but Rose gripped his hips with her thighs and forced him to, threw her head back, her eyes screwed shut as the ache melted and her pleasure equaled his.

That small encouragement was all the Doctor needed and he moved inside her recklessly, unable to do otherwise. Had he been cognisant of anything except his need to shag Rose Tyler senseless, the Doctor might've been ashamed at himself for being so undone after only a few months of wanting her. But he was oh so human and oh so desperate for her that he was nothing else in that moment, not a Time Lord, not alien, not a time traveller, not duty bound. He was nothing but the man that needed her like she was water and he was dying of thirst.

He didn't last and Rose wasn't surprised. She felt his orgasm building the second he began thrusting and it felt as though it would split her head in two with pleasure when it hit. He called out for her again and again and through the haze of it all, Rose loved the sound of her name backed by the force of his release.

Feeling his body relax atop her, Rose pushed at his chest and slid her hand along his arm to find his fingers where they gripped the sheets beside her head. She brought them to her lips and took three inside her mouth, made them wet with her tongue as the Doctor stared at her with intense fascination. Shifting her hips as she brought his hand down to them, Rose guided his slick fingers inside her just as his cock slipped out and bit her lip.

Exhausted, the Doctor tuned into what Rose was feeling to fight the sleep that wanted to come, noted the speed and pressure that felt best and where she wanted it focused. His breath caught as she started sliding her finger alongside her clit and he appreciated that she had been closer to coming than he'd thought.

Eyes screwed shut, Rose breathed faster and placed her free hand on the Doctor's chest, caressed his muscles as they twitched in his efforts. His name died on her lips before it escaped as she came. In that instant, just as she was at the edge, he had whispered her name in his mind and touched her mentally just so, pushed her over.

Rose's arm reached about the Doctor to pull him closer as she rode out her orgasm and he buried his face in her shoulder, feeling every twitch of her every muscle in his mind.

 _You're better at that than me_ , he thought and Rose laughed, hugged him tighter still.

Before he could pull out, Rose gripped his hand to hold it inside her and whispered in his ear, "keep going." The muscles in his arm burning, the Doctor obliged and she came again not seconds later, this time pushing his hand from her as she rolled him over and laid atop him.

They were both breathless as they lay with their arms wrapped tightly about one another and only slowly did they become conscious of their own thoughts and then each others. Rose leaned up just enough to catch the Doctor's drooping eyes and her lips found his as she threaded her fingers into his hair. She smiled as he sighed into her mouth and fell like a stone into sleep. At the edge of consciousness, just as sleep took her, Rose saw him in their minds, dressed in his brown suit and long coat, leaning against the Tardis. He stretched a hand out to her and wiggled his fingers, grinning. She took it and they ran in their dreams.

-#-

He was aware that she had left the bed but knew she was nearby, felt her mind and how it was so much more awake and aware than his. Mentally, he called out for her and felt her respond reassuringly. Groaning, the Doctor cracked an eye at the light coming in through the bedroom door, saw it go out and Rose return.

He grinned sleepily. "You're naked."

"Yeah, and it's not half cold, budge up," she whispered, slipping under the covers with him and nudging him aside.

The Doctor felt something cold on his chest and opened an eye again to find it was a banana. He giggled dozily and reached for it, peeled it as he finally forced his eyes open to regard Rose properly. She was propped up an elbow, watching him as she ate her own fruit, the covers drawn up around her chest. "S'like Christmas," the Doctor said quietly, "fruit in the bed," and Rose smiled at him.

Warmth pooled in the pit of his stomach as he watched her. "Rose, is it just me or are you eating that banana rather...suggestively?"

Rose gave him a look, swallowed. "This is just how I eat a banana," she replied smoothly and took another bite, her tongue meeting the tip of the fruit as she did so, "and you are daft," she said with a smile after she had chewed and swallowed. It amused her to feel that he was genuinely aroused at the sight of her.

Reaching aside to drop her peel on the bedside table, Rose returned to looking at the Doctor and played with the hairs on his chest. "Have you often thought about me... _eating a banana_ ," she asked and this time meant every hint of suggestion.

The Doctor's jaw dropped before he quickly closed it and nodded. "Yeah, yep," he confessed, then whispered a second later, "you do have very beautiful lips."

Rose smiled warmly at the tenderness in his comment then let her eyes drift to his lap as she drew the blankets down. She took his hand, pulled at him until he sat at the edge of the bed and she knelt before him. Intent on following through with the banana metaphor, Rose was caught off guard when he raised her face with a hand on her cheek and ran his thumb along her lips. His eyes traced their curve as well before drifting to meet hers and Rose felt how fully he was present with her that time. She pressed herself up, her hands on his thighs as he leant down to meet her in the kiss, his hands once more in her hair but not in fear she would retreat.

Rose would recall the second time they had sex as the first time they properly made love, patient and drawn out and the more memorable for those facts. He mapped her scars with his fingers and tongue whenever he managed to tear his mouth from hers. Cradling his head to her whenever his mouth went in search of old wounds, Rose would wind her hands in his hair and marvel at the feel of it, the feel of their bodies as close as their minds had been the past few months.

-#-

She beat him out of the bed once more and, in pjs and a robe to ward off the morning chill, he went into the kitchen to find her at the stove. Her back to him as she cooked, she swayed to the R&B she had on, music she listened to rarely but that the Doctor knew she loved. He watched her until she reached aside to pick up her coffee and caught him out of the corner of her eye when she did so.

"Good mornin'," she said with a smile to greet his grin.

"Have to agree with that," he said, walking toward her.

When she slipped her arms about his shoulders and kissed him, he leaned in and hugged her tightly to him. "Is this a thing we get to do now? Kissing?" He asked.

Rose grinned properly at him, her high cheek bones accentuated for it. "Yeah, that's a thing we get t'do now."

"Not that we hadn't before, this is just-"

"Different," she cut him off and drew him down to her again. That was how the first round of pancakes got burnt.

Rose sang as she cooked, which she rarely did and the Doctor was pleased to hear, and they got distracted snogging one another a few more times. Apart from that, though, it was a normal morning. They joked, they touched often and with no more or less affection than they ever had.

The Doctor frowned through a mouthful of pancake. "It's, um, it's Tuesday, innit?"

"Mmm," Rose intoned, curled into his side, a mug of coffee wrapped in her hands.

"Not that I'm particularly keen on headin' into the ol' Tower but...shouldn't we be at work? Aren't Torchwood personnel about to descend on our flat in search of you and find us in our jim jams?"

Smirking at his nervousness at such a thought, Rose nuzzled his shoulder. "I called us in sick. Just remember ya had food poisoning last night."

"Did I? Most pleasant bout of food poisoning I have _ever_ had," he said, popped another forkfull of pancake into his mouth.

"Mmm, me too," Rose laughed.


	11. No Words Have Come Close

Jackie had suspected her daughter and the Doctor had been sleeping together for a long time before it actually happened. She would look at him significantly almost every family dinner whenever she caught them holding hands or stealing a kiss which was, all things considered, not that often. Rose was still guarded about her personal life and shagging the Doctor or no, some habits she found hard to break. Fed up one dinner when Donna was over, Jackie finally crossed her arms and glared at the Doctor.

"Are you ever gonna make a proper woman out of my daughter?"

The Doctor leaned back from Rose's chair where he had just lingered long enough to smell her hair. "What?"

"Mum," Rose drew the word out, half in exasperation, half in warning.

"I think she means, 'when are ya getting' hitched?'," Donna supplied for him and the Doctor glared at her.

"What? Like, like...a wedding?" He asked, unable to miss Pete's smirk from the other end of the table.

"Yes, a wedding. Don't be daft," Jackie scowled at him.

"How is that s'posed to make Rose any more or less proper?" His voice a little high in agitation, the Doctor tucked back into his food to indicate his reluctance to continue with the topic.

"Don't keep on 'er or she'll be at you all night," Rose whispered aside to him behind her napkin.

"And you, miss," Jackie turned on her daughter, "the way he treats you, honestly, I wonder at you, I really do."

"Mum," Rose laughed incredulously at this and a full fledged Tyler bickering match broke out, more intense these days with Donna in the mix. The Doctor and Pete gave each other conspiratorial looks of understanding, both wondering how they might exit the conversation unnoticed.

"...Give me one good reason you won't marry her," the Doctor tuned in at the last minute to hear Jackie ask him.

"Don't!" Rose warned as the Doctor opened his mouth but it was too late.

"Because I think weddings are stupid!" The Doctor opined vehemently.

Donna smacked him, Jackie raged and the two women generally talked over the Doctor as he griped about the institution of marriage as it was known to most humans. He didn't have a leg to stand on, not even Rose could assist meaningfully. Jackie and Donna harangued him a while before the Doctor finally excused himself to go to the loo.

Rose found him just outside the back door of the mansion, his breath coming out in cold clouds. She wrapped his jacket about his shoulders as she came out and leaned next to him. "Sorry about that."

"Why're you sorry? Not your fault they're..." He refrained from saying what he thought Jackie and Donna were, partly to be sensitive to the fact that Jackie was Rose's mother.

"Bloody idiots?" Rose offered but the Doctor declined to acknowledge the veracity of the statement.

A long silence stretched with them looking out at the cold night before a thought occurred to the Doctor. "Does it bother you? That I think weddings are rubbish?"

Rose shook her head instantly. Her mother had been dropping not so subtle hints for the last few months that she and the Doctor should have a do and tie the knot. Why not, was Jackie's thought. But the thought of marrying the Doctor struck Rose awkwardly the same way it had every time someone insinuated they were a couple when they were travelling.

 _He's not my boyfriend, he's better than that_.

The words had rung through her head when she considered the absurd notion of her and the Doctor, in a dress and a tux, exchanging rings and vows. It would have been hollow to her and if it would have been hollow to her, Rose could only imagine what the Doctor must have thought of the idea. She knew he found words, those of Rose's native tongue especially, ungainly and unsuitable for expressing how he felt about her and the bond they had.

They shared some very human things but they were still Rose and the Doctor and they didn't dream of weddings and white picket fences. They dreamt of the stars.

-#-

Exasperated, the Doctor took earfulls from Donna every chance she could manage. He didn't understand her and Jackie's devotion to the artificial ceremony any more than they understood his reluctance to just up and do it. He also didn't understand why it was his duty and not something he and Rose should be badgered about equally. When he grumpily pointed this out to Rose one evening she just smirked and shook her head.

"Ya know, part of the reason I'm not choked up about you and how ya feel about weddin's is that I see in your head everything sweet ya think about me. Mum and Donna just think you're snubbin' me, you need to talk to them, explain yourself. They're never gonna let up otherwise." She went back to reading and the Doctor sulked, unsure how it had come to be that the only sane woman in his life was Rose.

Things came to a head at the next family dinner. They were barely in the door when Donna dropped a wedding magazine in his lap and Jackie asked if they had a date set yet. Rose ignored them both and picked up Tony, engaged him in a conversation the Doctor was certain was more interesting than the one he was about to be forced into.

He slumped onto the couch and noted morosely that Pete hadn't showed. _Smart bastard_ , he thought. Elbows to his knees, hands holding up his head, the Doctor gave Jackie a dazed hound dog expression as she waxed whimsically on matrimony.

"...and the vows, proper words, you'd be good at that! Tell the whole world what Rose means to ya," Jackie said, her voice airy and touched at the thought.

The Doctor growled before he stood up, his temper getting the better of him. "I don't want to tell the _whole world_ what Rose means to me! This whole...bloody marriage thing is a farce!"

Jackie went from touched to defensive in a second and, though a head shorter than the Doctor, was impressive in her fury. "Are you sayin' my marriage is a farce?"

"No!" The Doctor said loudly, seeing the arguments so clearly in his mind and still unable to fathom Jackie's disconnect. "Whatever you and Pete have I'm sure it's...I dunno, magical," he said with slight disdain and Jackie looked like she might hit him for it, "but for Rose and me it would be...It would be..."

"What?!" Jackie roared.

"Insulting!" The Doctor finally yelled in return and Jackie and Donna were on him, how dare he, who did he think he was, wonder Rose didn't leave him with such talk. He deflated under their abuse and the misunderstanding they were struggling under.

Rose was hugging Tony tightly to her chest, a hand covering his ears to block out the worst of the cussing but she nodded encouragingly at the Doctor. Then he felt her in his mind and remembered a time when he had been so lonely his hearts had echoed in the silence that surrounded him. He wasn't lonely like that anymore, he was so far from that feeling and he smiled to know it.

Turning back to the two women before him, the Doctor stepped toward them and grabbed their hands before they could react. As he did so, he focused on how he felt about Rose, the heart achingly giddy wonder of her and every beautiful, subtle emotion she inspired in him and he impressed that upon their minds. Donna and Jackie shut up abruptly.

"I have seen Shakespeare speak his wedding vows...heard a dying soldier's proclamation of unrequited love and the words of martyrs in ecstasy before they met their gods...none of them have come close to expressing _this feeling_ ," he whispered. "To attempt to do so would insult Rose and I will never," a shake of his head, "not with words, not with a ring to claim I own her, none of it."

Silent the longest time, Jackie finally said, "well why didn't ya just say so?" And hugged him, tears in her eyes. The Doctor looked at the ceiling before sighing and wrapping his arms around her.

Donna brought her hands to her hips. "But whot about you?" She asked Rose, "what do you want?"

Rose held Tony in one arm, her other was raised to his face so he could attempt to play with her comm device, her having locked it prior to. She looked at the assembled, her gaze falling on the Doctor who smiled a Doctor smile at her and she gave him a Rose Tyler smirk in return. "I have what I want," and with that she left them all to take Tony to the dining room, ending any further conversation on the topic.

-#-

"Are you sure he won't be mad?" Donna asked.

"I think he's gonna cry," Rose replied, smiling.

"He really isn't one to cry, just holds all his big bag Time Lord emotions in 'til he's burstin'."

"Bet ya ten quid," Rose countered.

"You're on."

-#-

Rose held the Doctor's hand from the jeep all the way up to Donna's flat but let it slip once they reached the door. Donna now had a significant contingent of friends from work and while Rose knew she and the Doctor were already grist for the rumour mill, she didn't want to add to it. Their friend's birthday presents, both picked out by Rose, were in the Doctor's other hand. Two separate gifts, no mistaking that Rose and the Doctor had bought anything together.

The Doctor let himself in and the five or so friends that had arrived before them beckoned to them. Greetings were exchanged and the Doctor nodded to the banner that hung at the other end of the room as he took his jacket off. "Happy birthday Donna and John? Who's John?"

Rose stamped down her amusement before it bled through to his mind and shook her head innocently. "Have no idea what's w'that," she said lightly, thankful for her years of keeping her emotions in check.

They shmoozed and hung out, the Doctor being his usual affable self. Rose found herself drawn to Peter out of everyone now that they had taken a few trips in the Rdis together. He had almost stopped calling her Bad Wolf every time they spoke out of work. Rose thought Donna was being a little too affectionate with the Doctor but figured he would chalk it up to how much she had had to drink.

After a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday was sung and Donna had opened her presents, she stood before her friends and looked at the Doctor, bit her lip.

After a nervous laugh in which the crowd joined her, Donna looked at Rose, "thought you said it was him who'd be cryin'?" And she wiped a tear from her eye.

Rose shrugged and the Doctor looked back and forth between the two women, brow furrowed in mild confusion.

"I think you all know...that my best friend is here tonight, John," Donna indicated him and he grinned at her, "The Doctor to some of us at TW Industries, eh?" A ripple of laughter from some of those assembled. "And I know it's my party an' all but as you can see, I've, well, Rose and I have included him in the festivities a bit," she said, pointing to the banner above her head as Rose left the Doctor's side and joined her. "We've got a present for him, if you'll just bare w'us a minute and if ya won't well ya con sod off 'cause it's my party!" More laughter but everyone grew hushed again in short order.

The Doctor frowned at both of them, rubbed at the base of his neck. "My...fake birthday isn't 'till July," he said, rather than that he thought birthdays were rubbish and what were they on about anyway. Some things he was willing to give the benefit of the doubt to his best friend and Rose on.

Rose took out a stack of papers she had tucked in the back of her jeans, hidden underneath her hoodie. "Yeah...we changed it on ya, hope you weren't too attached."

The Doctor looked bemused now and shook his head, "you know I don't care-"

"Yeah, we do," Donna said quickly with a glance at Rose, "so we thought we'd give you a reason to." With that, Donna motioned him up to them and the Doctor found Peter at his side taking his glass away with a warm smile, clearly in on whatever the secret was.

Donna handed the Doctor a small stack of documents and he looked at her and Rose a moment before flipping through them. The smile slipped from his face instantly.

The passport showed him grinning but the name next to it was no longer John Smith, born July 1, 1976. The passport belonged to Johnathan Tyler Noble, born March 4, 1976, a day after Donna's birthday.

He looked up at Donna and saw tears pooling in her eyes, felt the sting of them in his own. "Official records now list you as my brother," Donna whispered and the Doctor swallowed hard, clenched his jaw as he felt overwhelmed. The birth certificate underneath read the same as the passport.

"Donna," he said softly and she laughed, brushed another tear away and bumped Rose on the shoulder.

"Now you," Donna said to Rose and Rose handed the Doctor another piece of paper.

He frowned at it for a long time. It was just a bureaucratic piece of paper with all kinds of useless information considering the function it provided, most of it made up when it came to Johnathan Noble. But the information for Rose Tyler was true. Father's name and surname: Peter Tyler; Father's profession: salesman. According tot he record, Johnathan Noble had been 34 when he married Rose Tyler, 24 years old herself at the time.

"In case somethin' happens, yeah? Ya get...I dunno, hit by a lorry or somethin'," Rose said, putting a hand on his forearm, "The first call'll go to your spouse, that'd be me. Failin' that, they'd get in touch w'Donna, your sister." She felt him quivering ever so slightly where she touched him.

The Doctor looked back and forth between Rose and Donna and tears were indeed threatening to spill down his cheeks. Rose could see the memories racing through his mind, those of his family on Gallifrey, his parents, his brother, his daughter. When he had first showed her memories of them back on the Tardis, he had told her he thought of them rarely because he found it so profoundly painful to do so.

Thinking of them now, Rose could hear the word ' _family_ ' in Gallifreyan accompanying their faces in the Doctor's mind. She smiled at him. "We wouldn't have done all this w'out your say so. You'd have to sign a few things," she said and before she had finished, the Doctor had whipped around to the crowd,

"Peter!" And he laid his hands on his friend's shoulders, "bum a pen off ya?"

Peter smiled at him and produced a pen from his jacket. Taking it, flipping it up in the air and deftly catching it again, the Doctor turned back to Rose and Donna and signed a few sheets where Rose said he should. That done, he pulled Donna into a rib cracking hug and spun her about, giggling. When he finally put her down Donna leaned into him and whispered against his ear, "I love you spaceman."

"And you, earthgirl," he replied just as softly.

The Doctor's eyes then found Rose and he hesitated. "There's a few people from work here-"

"Fancy that," Rose said and pulled him into a hug herself.

 _It doesn't mean anything, the paper, I mean...s'not about the marriage_ , Rose explained in her mind as they held eachother tightly, her cheek pressed to his shoulder.

 _It means something to me_ -, The Doctor countered.

Rose fidgeted in his grasp, clearly finding it hard to explain. _I just means...all it says is that I can be there for ya..._

He crushed her tighter and she felt a single tear of his land on her cheek before he pressed his lips to her temple quickly, a motion no one would have seen but that Rose felt all the same.

The cake read: Happy 37th and 905th Birthday Donna and the Doctor. Most everyone thought it was a joke. In the pictures from the party, the Doctor grinned stupidly next to his sister, both with mouths full of the thing.

-#-

He awoke hard and hungry for her like he had many mornings. He used to slip from the bed they shared and go for a shower, fantasize about her but find release alone. Now the Doctor didn't hold that feeling back from Rose, let it seep suggestively into her mind as he kissed the back of her neck.

 _What time is it?_

 _Mmm, 'bout eight._

A beat. _Okay_.

Rose turned to him and cracked her eyes, couldn't help but smile at his grin. Tugging his shirt over his head, she ran a hand down his chest and into his lap. "Catch me up, then," she ordered playfully and he kissed her as he slipped a hand under her shirt.

It had been a shock to feel his pleasure when they had sex but Rose had adjusted to it readily enough. Slowly, as he remembered exactly how to do it, the Doctor had begun to use their psychic connection itself when they were intimate. He discovered her mental erogenous zones and could, with her permission every time, hold her climax at bay until he was ready himself. Rose had described the first time they came together as 'mind-fucking-blowing' and asked that they refrain from doing it often. She had been unable to move or form coherent thoughts for hours afterward.

That didn't mean she didn't find it tempting to approach that danger zone and she sat on his lap that morning edging her toe ever closer to it. The free flow of thoughts and feeling between their minds when they had been at it for a while was so easy, at times they couldn't tell whose body a given sensation originated in. The Doctor fought down a niggling thought at the back of his mind when Rose moaned his name, they were close and he didn't want his Time Lord brain distracting them both.

She picked up the pace, closer than he was, her eyes screwed shut and her focus absolute. Again, she called for him and a thought bothered the Doctor. He mentally swatted at it like a fly, irritated at the distraction, did his best to focus on the sight of Rose coming undone around him. This worked well enough and as she came he tipped over the edge himself, sat up to wrap his arms around her as he groaned out her name. As he did so, his mind snapped to with brutal focus and he understood what had been bothering him.

As if his body was separated from his mind, he leaned back and watched Rose, really listened to her as she came down from the high of it. She was still whispering his name and his praises and eventually met his eyes.

"What's wrong?" She asked breathlessly when she saw him staring at her hard.

"What were you just saying?" He asked, voice rough on Rose's ears.

She frowned at him. "What?"

Shaking his head, the Doctor looked into the depths of her eyes, his mind baring down on hers like a gale force wind.

"Doctor," she said in surprise but he gripped her biceps, his jaw set.

" _What did you say?_ "

Rose gaped at him, her eyes widening in understanding. "Oh shit," she said softly.

He had spoken in his native tongue and of course she had understood.

"I said your name, didn't I?" She asked, noting the fire in his eyes, how his chest rose and fell with force and not from the bit of fun they had just been having.

"How?" He snarled, in English again, and Rose moved to sit beside him, drew the covers around her as she sighed.

She looked at him, bit her lip, tucked her hair behind her ear. "I remember our first kiss."

Agitated, the Doctor frowned at her, "What does that mean?"

"Think about it," Rose said, her eyes soft and loving for him, not bothered in the least by his reaction.

It took several seconds but Rose knew he understood when the hard lines in his face gradually softened. She had told him as much about their first kiss the night they had made love for the first time, though he had been too distracted to note it. But it was clear to him then that Rose should not, could not remember their first kiss because Rose hadn't been there for their first kiss. The Bad Wolf had.

"You can't," he whispered and Rose saw fear well in his eyes as he went to put his hands to her temples.

"Don't!" Rose growled, her own temper flaring as she pushed his hands away.

"It could kill you!" He shouted but Rose gripped his wrists with impressive force.

"It hasn't in three years, and I'm willing t'take the chance-"

"Rose-"

"I would never have found you without it!" She said loudly at him and it brought up memories of everything she had gone through just to get to him, made her voice crack a little.

They sat breathing hard, staring hard at one another for several long minutes.

"I understood why you did it the first time...but I will never forgive ya if you try to take Bad Wolf...or those memories...from me again. Are we clear on that?"

The Doctor swallowed. It was a matter of trust, whether or not he trusted the woman she had become and her understanding of her own self in the temporal spatial reality. Honestly, it scared him to death to have to trust any one else's instincts in that realm. But her eyes were fierce and she had demonstrated time and again in the last year that those instincts of hers were good.

"Yeah," he said finally and Rose relaxed a little.

Reaching out a hand, Rose placed it against the Doctor's chest and whispered his name, his true name, in the tongue of his people. He shivered and gripped at her hand, leaned into her, his features and mind begging for more. Rose leant toward him, touched their foreheads together.

" _Lots of your memories, your knowledge, shifted to me with that kiss_ " she whispered in Gallifreyan, " _That's how I knew how to grow a Tardis, how I speak the languages I speak...most of it...I've survived here because of that gift._ " She smiled when she realised he was struggling to focus on the substance of her words. " _And that thing that you want...for us,_ " she whispered and saw his breath catch, " _might be possible._ "

He was speechless, overwhelmed and still concerned for her. When Rose wrapped her arms around him, he fell into her and gripped at her tightly.

-#-

It took two years, four, if you counted from its beginning, but two from the time the Doctor came to that universe. Two years from that date Rose and the Doctor parked the Rdis and looked up at one another from the console, eyes afire. They walked around it and grasped each other's hands without thought, strode through the doors.

The Rdis was tucked in the corner of the parking lot at their flat, the day grey and drizzling, unremarkable. They raced up the stairs, Rose shoving at him like they were five, like she would have done when they first started traveling together. She beat him inside to her room and waited for him before sliding her hand along the wall.

Gently, they unhooked cables and tubes, their grins doubling when the re-feed came off and they heard her. And it was a her, how could she not be? She was first and foremost Rose's child, infused with everything Rose could recall of the original Tardis and the original Tardis was a she.

Rose lifted the mass of blue crystals into her arms, her heart racing, the Doctor's unbridled joy barely contained in the back of her mind. With a delicacy in complete contradiction to how they had entered the flat, they returned to the Rdis. The Doctor opened the doors, watched Rose's footfalls for obstructions she might've missed. He flicked a few switches, cranked on a lever and the casing about the empty time rotor dropped down. Leaning over the console, he reached out his hands and Rose eased the Tardis crystal into them. With arms longer than Rose's, he was able to deposit the crystal at the base of the rotor without the risk of it dropping.

The Doctor withdrew and Rose pulled on a crank, raising the rotor casing. Then she put her hands in her pockets and chewed on her lip while the Doctor rubbed at the back of his neck and shifted on the spot.

"Can we stay in here tonight?" The Doctor said at the exact moment that Rose blurted, "so stayin' with her tonight, yeah?" They laughed nervously at one another before sitting in the hammock that had always hung next to the console.

"Where do you want to go?" He asked her, both of them looking at the time rotor.

"Everywhere," Rose replied automatically and the Doctor grinned. He knew the feeling. "I want to go t'the orchard planets of the Walchet system...the Colstam cloud oceans..." She looked aside at him, a depth to her eyes that spoke of knowledge to the Doctor, not age. "I want to go t'all the places ya wanted to take me before Canary Wharf."

The Doctor took her hand. "So...everywhere then?"

"Yes, everywhere," Rose laughed, pushed out with her toe and set them rocking.

After a long silence, Rose and the Doctor having leaned into one another closely, he whispered, "she's excited." He looked aside at Rose who frowned at him in concentration.

It dawned on Rose and her eyes lit up, started to mist with tears. "She's singing," she whispered.

That Rose could hear the Tardis, appreciate the music of the beautiful creature, made the Doctor's heart ache and he pulled her into him. They hugged tightly, the Tardis' sonorous melody in the background of their minds.

-#-

Peter walked into Hanger one and strode lazily to the back of the floor, past sleek new Helios, until he reached a corner in which a Police Public Call Box was tucked. He smiled as he pushed at the door and found it ajar.

"All Right, John," he called out, "what is it?"

A second later Donna poked her head through the door as well and smiled at Peter. "Called you in too, eh?"

Nodding at her, Peter walked toward the console. "Seriously, John! It's a Saturday. Some of us had plans to...you know, not be at work."

"Trust me, Turtle, this is not work," came the Doctor's voice from the main corridor off the console room.

Smiling quizzically at Donna, the two of them waited a second until Rose and the Doctor appeared from the corridor. Something about the light in their faces gave Donna pause and she looked around the ship. When her eyes fell back on the Doctor, he grinned at her with a manic gleam in his eye.

"So I take it you fancy a trip," Peter said, leaning against the console, "where are we off to then? Asteroid bazaar in town?"

"That's not it, is it?" Donna said softly and Peter frowned over his shoulder at her.

Smiling warmly at her, Rose said, "we thought it'd be proper if you were both here for this one."

"This one what?" Peter laughed, sensing the tension in the room. "Where are we going?"

"Not where, Peter," Donna said, a grin splitting her own face, " _when_!"

The Doctor raised his hand and snapped his fingers, closing the Tardis doors, before he brought the hand down to pull a lever. The ship lurched. "Smartest person at Torchwood," he said, eyes on Donna.

Running to him, Donna threw her arms around her friend. "Oh my god, it's real innit?"

"I hope so," the Doctor said with laughter in his words.

"I don't understand," Peter said, looking to Rose as he so often did when the Doctor wasn't making sense. "What does she mean, 'when'?"

As the Doctor stepped back from Donna and spun a dial, pressed a few buttons, Rose looked at the viewscreen. "I think...yeah. 1989, Berlin." Peter just frowned at her as Donna let out a peal of laughter.

"We're here," the Doctor said simply, stuffed his hands into his pockets.

Racing to the doors, Donna grabbed Peter's arm as she went, dragging him along. Behind them, at a more subdued gate, the Doctor walked around the console to face the doors as did Rose. He held out his hand and she looked at it a second before taking it. They walked down the grating, stepped out the doors and into a different decade. Both inhaled as they did so, looked around into the night air.

The four of them walked from the alley in which the Tardis had parked and fell into a crowd that was wending its way through the streets with purpose. Someone cheerily asked them a question in German and Rose responded, smiling at them.

"Oh my god," Peter said when they rounded a corner and were faced with an impressive crowd. Some 20 meters ahead of them, a massive wall stood with guards at the gate through it. "Is this...?" He looked back at Rose and the Doctor, the latter raising his wrist to his face.

"Yep...in about...five more minutes," he said, his breath fogging before him. Peter laughed and a stranger in the crowd next to him grinned in return, thumped him on the back.

"I was seven years old when the wall came down," Peter whispered, shaking his head as Donna gripped his bicep, understanding fully how overwhelmed he was.

Harried looking soldiers soon stepped to the gates and opened them and the throng cheered, pressed through into Western Germany. Rose couldn't help but feel, as they danced atop the Berlin wall with hundreds of newly freed Germans, that the Doctor had chosen their first trip well.

-#-

It was the most Peter had ever talked. His mind blown by the night's events, he seemed incapable of processing them on his own.

"A decade and a half!" He enthused and his three companions merely smiled knowingly. Decades were nothing to them, they who had been at the burning of Pompeii and middle of the 51st century.

They all leaned around the console as the Doctor put them into the vortex, letting the ship soak it up for a few minutes before he brought them home.

"But we could go anywhere, any when!" And Peter began spouting off destinations. Again, his three companions merely smiled, no one mentioning to Peter that the chronal stability of the Tardis would allow them to go to the furthest reaches of their galaxy even in their present time.

"Doctor," Donna said, eyes warm as they sat on her friend, "we could go to Kasterborous."

The Doctor was in the midst of a half smile, the thought bittersweet, when he felt as though he'd been shoved. Looking over his shoulder he saw Rose leave the console room, her mind walled off from him.

"Um," the Doctor stalled, looking back at Donna, "maybe. That's ages away though! Reason I took us here's cause it was close, wasn't it? Might not've been able to get back, would've been stuck wherever we landed sooo, close trips for the time being, eh? You two think on it. Where do you want to go!?" He said in an excited rush and once more Peter was babbling, dragging Donna along with him.

"Paris, 1930's. Can you imagine?" The Doctor heard Peter gushing in disbelief as he turned from them, walked out the console room.

Reaching out to the ship, the Doctor saw the path Rose had followed clearly in his mind thanks to the Tardis. The Tardis crystal would be working on the Rdis structure for a while yet as she became stronger. She would add rooms and get into the habit of changing them around. In the mean time though, the Doctor only asked for help locating Rose because it felt wonderful to be able to do so. The Rdis structure had only had about 20 to begin with, all much more rudimentary than anything the Tardis had ever dreamed up.

He found her in the room that housed the magnetic filters for the slip drive, her back to him as she dug around in an open panel.

"I thought I felt her pitch a little when we entered the vortex," Rose said when she heard him enter, "wanted to make sure the resonance couplers hadn't come apart."

The Doctor crossed his arms, leaned against the doorway and continued looking at Rose's back. Even the few minutes silence from her mind made him edgy. "The Tardis takes care of coupling the internal and external magnetic fields. This stuff is all just window dressing now," he murmured.

Rose paused then continued digging in the wires. "She's young...maybe she hasn't integrated the magnetics yet."

"It's possible," the Doctor said, "but you and I both know that she has."

With that, Rose finally stopped working but stayed kneeling on the ground, her back to the Doctor. Once she was still, he could appreciate that she was breathing a little too fast, that her shoulders were tense. Unable to reach her psychically, he knelt down beside her and tipped her face toward his, saw the conflict there.

"Let me in," he whispered and with her eyes searching his, eventually felt her mind open to him. He nodded at the thoughts there as Rose dropped her head, ashamed.

The Doctor pulled her into a hug and she slipped her arms around him, held him almost uncomfortably tight. "M'sorry," she whispered. And the Doctor smirked into her hair.

"I hope that's sorry for closing me out and not sorry for the thought," he said warmly and Rose just buried her face in his shoulder.

"Oi! If you're gonna shag in the Tardis, have the decency to drop us off in Ibiza or somethin' first, would'ya?" Rose and the Doctor laughed as they heard Donna call out and he looked Rose squarely in the eyes, stroked her cheek with his thumb before they stood.

"Thank you," Donna said as Rose and the Doctor walked back into the console room hand in hand.

"Not Ibiza I think," the Doctor said, dropping Rose's hand reluctantly and stepping to the controls, "just home."

"How long have we been gone?" Peter asked, leaning on the console next to him. The Doctor grinned aside at his friend and twitched a dial.

"No time at all, Peter," and the Tardis lurched to a stop, Peter looking puzzled at the Doctor.

Peter brought his hands to his head when he and Donna stepped from the Tardis and he caught sight of the large glowing numerals of the clock on the Hanger wall. "Oh my god," he said again. It was a minute after they had left. He turned to the Doctor with wide eyes, their faces close. "We could travel forever and no time would pass..."

"Not quite, Peter," the Doctor said softly to him, "you aged four hours in that minute."

This drew Peter up short and he looked uncertainly at the Tardis behind the Doctor.

Standing in the doorway, the Doctor nodded at Donna and Peter. "I need to take Rose out," he said, Rose still behind at the console. "But you lot, I meant it, I want to know where we're going next." He grinned at them and they returned the expression before he dipped back inside the Tardis and closed the doors.

Rose didn't look away from the time rotor as the Doctor approached her and he felt that she was still regretting her reaction to the mention of his home planet. "I want you to have a family," she whispered.

"I know," the Doctor said, coming to stand next to her, their arms touching.

"And a home," Rose continued.

"I know." After a minute, the Doctor added, "it's okay to want me to have those things _with_ you."

Rose swallowed and hung her head. Nestled in the pit of her stomach was the fear that he would abandon her again. As excited as she had been to see the Tardis come alive, doing so had made her realise that there was now nothing that held the Doctor to the earth. He was free to go. Hard as it had been for Rose to do, she had let these thoughts and feelings flow to him when he'd asked for them. The Doctor felt his own guilt at the fact that Rose felt guilty. He thought her fears legitimate even knowing that Gallifrey, if it existed in this universe, was a gingerbread house. French aristocrats and Daleks. The unforeseeable. Too often had he become sidetracked, had they come close to their adventures becoming nightmares.

It was the uncertainty of the life they led that made the Doctor want to do what he planned that moment, for Rose's peace of mind and his own. That didn't stop his heart from hammering at the prospect.

Looking aside at him, Rose felt his anxiety peak as his brow furrowed. She hadn't expected him to feel fear, she had expected anger at her selfishness. Before she could question him, the Doctor turned to her, his eyes bright, and began to speak.

He was slow, the words beautiful both in tone and their meaning. Rose's lips parted when she realised what he was saying, words he had spoken to her in a drunken stupor two new years prior. He had explained it as the Gallifreyan equivalent of getting married then swiftly dismissed the comparison as rubbish. It was so much more than that.

"... _And I would have you ever in my mind_ ," the Doctor finished in Gallifreyan.

Rose waited a second. "Is that it?"

The Doctor laughed, louder due to his nerves. "Isn't that enough?"

Rose joined him, their hands catching one anothers. "I mean...I don't know what to say," she admitted, unable to remember what the Doctor's partner on Gallifrey had said in the memory he had shared with her, the only other time he had spoken those words.

The smile on the Doctor's face waned in his uncertainty. "Say yes," he whispered.

Rose grinned brightly at him before she brought their foreheads together and whispered ' _yes_ ' in Gallifreyan. She couldn't resist a quick kiss with him. "Sorry, I know that's not part of it," she smirked.

The Doctor shrugged. "We'll have to make allowances for our...humanity."

Rose laughed and watched as he turned to the console, tweaked a few dials, worked the pump. "Where are we going?"

Eyes still on the console and viewscreen, the Doctor replied, "the binding ritual's supposed to take place somewhere significant to the relationship the two people are hoping to cement."

Nodding initially, Rose then shook her head and frowned as she realised he hadn't actually answered her question. Still, the trip was short and the Doctor was reaching for her hand and walking toward the door before she could ask again.

When he opened the door, Rose shrugged. "Doesn't get much more significant than that for us, does it?"

Waves crashed a few meters from the Tardis doors, the crests of them tipped with moonlight in the grey and misty darkness.

"Yeah, sorry about that. It's just...not being in our universe an' all, I sort of didn't have a lot of options. It was really this...or the Tower."

Rose quickly shook her head as she crossed her arms against the chill coming in from the beach. "No...this is proper." She turned to look at him and inhaled deeply, her jaw set. "So...how does this work?"

The Doctor cracked the other door so the Tardis stood open to Dårlig Ulv Stranden then took both of Rose's hands and sat down, pulling her with him. They sat cross legged with their knees touching, their hands clasped in one another's in front of them. He took a deep breath.

"It's simple, really," he began, speaking softly, his thumbs caressing Rose's palms. "It's like...that night I showed you my memories of my family...of my childhood and you showed me yours."

"That's it," Rose frowned at him and the Doctor inhaled deeply again. Only then did she realise he was quivering.

"It's not selective, Rose. We'll show each other everything. Our whole lives..."

Despite all the heft of the situation, Rose snorted and the Doctor glowered at her. "Oi!"

"Sorry!" Rose laughed. "I was just thinkin' though..." And she giggled, "it'd be like...every time I ever shagged Mickey or...like when I nicked that shirt from the mall?"

"Yes, all that," the Doctor said, slightly miffed.

Rose quieted fairly quickly and ran a finger along the cuff of his dress shirt contemplatively. "I'm guessin' it's not the really embarrassing stuff what we're worried about, though, is it?" And when she looked back up to the Doctor's eyes, he knew she not only understood his trepidation, she shared it.

"No," he said softly, "I don't think it is."

They sat in silence looking into one another's eyes a moment.

"And what happens afterward?" Rose asked.

"We won't be able to lie to one another...hide anything. In essence...I'll be able to experience every sensation you feel, access every thought you have and you can't shut me out."

Rose chewed on her lip. "An'...same goes for me, yeah? I'll...be able to do all that too?"

The Doctor nodded. "If we do it properly."

"How do we do it improperly?" Rose smirked but the Doctor didn't laugh.

"Don't joke," he said thinly, "don't."

"Sorry," she said and pushed out to his mind to let him know she meant it. "You mean we can't hold nothin' back," she clarified and the Doctor nodded.

"Is your answer still yes?" He asked.

Rose looked him squarely in the eye, gripped his hands fiercely and by the force of her own will brought their minds together.

They opened their eyes into the blackness of thought space, saw themselves standing as if in a vast dark nothingness. The Doctor turned to Rose and smiled uncertainly. He knew he needed to take the lead as Rose had done in every human ritual they had ever gone through together. Still, he hesitated.

"You're afraid," Rose stated and he nodded. She thought of his first partner, the Time Lord whom he had bound himself to while withholding some of his memories and how that woman had wound up hurting him for it. "I promise...I won't hold back-"

But the Doctor shook his head at her, his eyes fathomless in their age. "I'm afraid...the things I've done...that you'll hate me."

She looked at him knowingly. "I think ya hate yourself for them enough for the both of us. Could say the same for me, comes to it."

The Doctor nodded, sniffed, shifted where he stood."Is it...is it okay if I go through them...how I want," the Doctor stumbled and Rose rushed to nod her head.

"Of course, they're your memories...however you're comfortable," she rubbed his arms but he felt guarded to her mind and Rose inhaled. Nothing said this process had to be easy. "When you're ready," and that made the Doctor smile wanly.

"I don't think I ever will be," he muttered and the darkness around them flickered and resolved into a street surrounded by drifting snow.


	12. From All of These Days Forward

I go severely OOC here mostly because I hadn't seen the day/time/name of the Doctor before this was written. Characters are all as they should be, with the exception of one, just events that are different.

-#-

 _Rose. Her name was Rose._

They watched as the remembered Doctor walked to the console, looked forlornly at the time Rotor. His plimsolls brought him to her room and he pushed open the door but didn't enter. He stood on the threshold, hands in his pockets and ached. The Tardis didn't turn the lights on and he knew why; she was trying to protect him. Sensing that Rose had gone and more permanently than at previous times, the ship refused to light Rose's room.

"We should fast forward a bit," the Doctor said at Rose's side, a might sheepish, "I...stand there for a while."

Rose hugged his arm and they were back at the Tardis console, the Doctor flicking switches and buttons with a focus and determination Rose had never seen. He ran to the doors and, looking side to side, slipped from them, Rose and the Doctor following on his heels.

"Wait...I know this place," Rose said as she looked around the snowy cityscape. "This is Cardiff."

"Yes," was all the Doctor said, not meeting her eyes but watching his remembered self intently.

They followed him as he wended his way around streets, always peering round corners before he turned them. Eventually he stayed at one corner and as they came up to his shoulder, Rose let out a soft "oh."

They were the three of them watching Rose and the Northern Doctor talk to Charles Dickens outside the Tardis.

"I thought you were so beautiful in that dress," the Doctor said and Rose looked sadly at him. This memory was filled with heartache for him and she felt it keenly.

Rose and the Northern Doctor departed, the remembered Doctor turned sadly from his hiding place and walked back to the Tardis, his head hung.

"I don't...I didn't do this for everyone I travelled with..." The Doctor said roughly and Rose read that he felt shame for his actions. She shook her head and tried a weak smile for him before the thought occurred to her.

"Doctor...how many times?"

He looked at her with impossibly old eyes as his remembered self set coordinates on the Tardis console behind them. They followed him across time and space as he retraced his former self's time with Rose, always hidden in shadows or ducking from sight.

Rose experienced a pain on par with what she had felt after she had lost him as she watched the Doctor look at her from afar. He would occasionally smile just for a moment when the Rose he watched laughed. But always his face became blank. He had looked empty after he had lost her.

She found herself drifting between the memory and the real mental presence of her Doctor, looking at them in kind, checking in with him. These memories still ached for him, even now, even after everything they had created.

Brown coat swirling about his knees as he drifted through the crowd a few feet behind Rose and the Northern Doctor, they followed the Doctor yet again. Rose had lost count of the number of times the Doctor had gone back to observe her, all she knew was that it pained her to think of him unable to move on. Only just in time did the remembered Doctor ahead of them turn to a stall to avoid meeting his former self and Rose as they abruptly turned around. The memory looked over his shoulder just as Rose passed him and looked at her longingly.

"This was dangerous," Rose said as the thought dawned on her.

"I know," the Doctor at her side said, "I know."  
Once his query was far enough away, the Doctor continued his pursuit. Having lost them around a corner, he walked round it with much less trepidation than he had on his first trip to observe Rose. A hand pulled at his jacket and shoved him up against the wall. The Northern Doctor stood with the full force of the oncomming storm behind him.

"What do you want with the girl?" He demanded sternly, his sonic pointed within an inch of his future self.

The memory slowed as the Doctor at Rose's side stepped up to his remembered selves, the anguish he felt writ clear across his face. "I wanted to scream at him," he said shakily, "you're going to lose her!" He bellowed at the Northern Doctor. "Don't let them out when the Tardis falls out of the vortex! Keep them with you, SAVE HER!" He railed at the leather clad Doctor, spit flying from his lips, his eyes wide and racing. It still got to him, even then, even in his future.

Rose could only stand and witness. The memory sped up, the Doctor pressed against the wall didn't say any of the things he had wanted so desperately to.

Instead, "what girl?" came from his lips.

"Don't be stupid," Northern said, pushing his fist farther into the other man's chest, "the blonde."

"Oh. Is she with you? That's a shame...I was going to ask you out, actually," the Doctor covered.

"Me?" Northern looked at the man he held roughly like he was daft.

"Fancy a date?" the remembered Doctor asked believably enough.

Northern released his hold on the other man, deftly slid his sonic into his breast pocket. "No," and he turned and walked off without another word.

The remembered Doctor stood breathing deeply, back to the wall he had been shoved against by himself. They followed him back to the Tardis, watched as he leaned heavily on the console.

He looked up at the time rotor and spoke to his ship. "Just one more," he whispered. "Please." And he hit a couple buttons, span a few dials. The ship lurched as though reluctant and the Doctor was forced to hold on. When it steadied, he looked at the doors with naked expectation before running to them and flinging them open. His head hung out the door, the anticipation drained from his face when he saw he was facing an identical blue box.

Rose and the Doctor watched as another man poked his head out from the Tardis opposite and stared at the Doctor.

The remembered Doctor stepped heavily from the Tardis. "No...no, no, no," he moaned, turned to look at his ship with equal parts fury and desperation in his features. "JUST ONE MORE!" He bellowed before falling to his knees, his face in his hands.

Rose looked at the scene before her, at the other man that stepped from the opposite Tardis, in confusion. "I don't understand...who's that?" She looked up to the Doctor at her side.

"That's me," he said simply.

"No," Rose said quickly, "I've seen you, all a you, yeah?" She searched his eyes.

"You've seen every man I've been in my past," the Doctor supplied for her, watched as realisation dawned in Rose's features and she turned to look back at the bow tie and tweed clad stranger.

"I'm sorry," the stranger said, rubbing his hands together in front of his chest, eyeing the Doctor on the ground with apprehension.

"Damn You! Damn your sorrys, just...damn it!" the Doctor on the ground raged, rocking back and forth.

The stranger stepped tentatively to the Doctor's side and knelt next to him. Slowly he reached for the Doctor and drew him into a hug, the Doctor's messy hair on his cheek.

"Just...one more," the Doctor on the ground whispered and Rose realised he was crying.

She brought a hand to her mouth as tears sprang to her own eyes. "Oh god," she whispered, looking at the Doctor and the stranger. Stepping up to them, she knelt beside them and looked into the eyes of the stranger, then at the Doctor in his arms who had his eyes screwed shut against tears that forced their way through anyway. The Doctor had gripped at the stranger as though for purchase on a rock face, as though to keep himself from falling.

The Doctor whose memories these were knelt next to Rose and pulled her tightly to his chest. In that moment, he understood one of Rose Tyler's greatest fears: that he, the Doctor, would be alone. She sobbed into his chest, paralleling his former and future selves next to them.

"Sometimes...a centuries old time traveller can only count on himself, Rose. Sometimes there is no one else," he whispered into her hair.

Eventually they all quieted and Rose and the Doctor stood looking at the stranger and the Doctor as they sat against a Tardis, both looking blankly at the Tardis opposite.

"She's just trying to protect us, protect Rose," the stranger said after a long silence, indicating the Tardis. When the Doctor didn't answer him, he continued. "You came too close with him and she knew it," he said, speaking of their encounter with Northern.

"Do I ever see her again?" the Doctor asked quietly, ignoring the strangers comments. His voice almost cracked.

The stranger only regarded him with deep and aged eyes, gave him no answer. Sniffing, the Doctor faced forward again and clenched his jaw.

"All I can say...is that you take care of her in the end," the stranger eventually said and the Doctor glared at him before standing.

The Doctor that observed the two men slipped his hand into Rose's and looked at her. He now knew what the stranger had meant by his obtuse comment. Rose returned the grip.

"What the hell does that mean?" The Doctor snarled.

Standing as well, the stranger walked back to his Tardis and put the key in the lock. A foot in the door, he turned and looked at the Doctor. "This _is_ the last time, I can tell you that too," he said, regarding the Doctor's back a moment longer before going inside and closing the door.

The grating sound of the Tardis dematerialising in their ears, the remembered Doctor turned to sneer at his own ship. "Traitor," he whispered, then, "she loved you."

Rose closed her eyes at his words.

-#-

Together, they relived the Doctor's memories, some more significant than others. Unflinching, Rose watched the human Doctor fall in love with Joan Redfern and kiss Astrid Peth, held his hand tighter as he sobbed over the body of the master.

"I love that woman," Rose said of Donna as they watched Donna and the Doctor collectively damn the people of Pompei and save the earth. The Doctor, who had been looking at his feet discomfited by the memory, looked aside at Rose. She rubbed his arm compassionately.

The moment River Song called him 'sweetie,' Rose raised a brow. She looked aside at the Doctor and he smiled enigmatically at her. Halfway through the adventure in the Library, Rose turned to the Doctor abruptly and the memory about them stopped.

"What?" the Doctor asked as Rose regarded him seriously for several seconds.

"You'd never met her before," Rose clarified and the Doctor shook his head. "Do you meet her after this?"

"Well I must-"

"No, I mean, do _you_ , as in this you. Do you remember meeting her again?" There was something akin to desperation in her voice.

"I...no," the Doctor supplied, unsure what the source of Rose's agitation was and further perplexed when she grinned at him, her eyes alight. "What?" he asked again.

"That means she loves ya...the future you... _him_ ," she tried to explain, smiling.

The Doctor had to think about this for a while. He fully comprehended that River was significant to some future incarnation of the Doctor in their home universe. Why this was significant was lost on him.

Rose shook him by the arms in her excitement. "He's not alone!" she cried and hugged the Doctor. Smiling in understanding, he hugged her back.

-#-

Rose had gripped the Doctor's bicep with iron fists as she watched him inches form being chucked out an airlock on Midnight. Only when the memory ended and everything about them faded to black did she breathe again, relax a little. When they stayed in the darkness of the Doctor's mind for longer than they had inbetween previous memories, she looked aside at him.

He was tense, his eyes still old and guarded, hands in his pockets.

Rose inhaled. "What next?"

"The Time War," he said after a lengthy silence.

The blackness became a haze of colours and finally they were on board the Tardis, watching a man with a shock of curly black hair hold on for dear life as the ship was thrown about. It was more than just a shaky landing and Rose realised from the sounds without that the ship was under fire.

"When I first heard of the war, I stayed on the fringes," the Doctor at her side said as the memories flashed by them. They watched the shaggy black haired Doctor doing what Rose had always pictured the Doctor doing: meeting people, helping people but in the context of a war. Some of them were grateful but as the memories wore on they saw that more and more people were mistrustful of the Time Lord.

"It was..." the Doctor struggled to find adequate words and Rose focused on the feelings he had around it. "It was a brutal mess."

"Eventually," the Doctor said as they watched the black haired Doctor walk into a room full of Time Lords in pompous looking dress, "I signed up. I couldn't ignore it anymore...couldn't help people without them looking at me like I was the cause of it...so I tried to fight. I did fight," he admitted.

Initially the shaggy haired war Doctor smiled just as often as the Doctor Rose knew did, even amongst blood and laser fire. But again, as the memories wore on, he became stony and Rose saw the Northern Doctor in him. They watched him put planet after planet that the Time Lords failed to save into time locks to prevent the Daleks on them from wining the battles. His shoulders hung heavy every time.

He left people behind, saw them blown to pieces, saw them lose their minds, their limbs, their hope.

"How long?" Rose asked as they watched his remembered self cower behind a half crumbled wall, a mine exploding on the other side of it, taking a soldier friend of his with it.

"200 years of my life," the Doctor at Rose's side said and she shook her head at the impossibility of the number. "But the Time War is essentially timeless. It will always be happening somewhere, the casualties are still mounting, somewhere at some time."

"A mess," Rose offered and the Doctor nodded.

A large blaster at his shoulder, they watched the war Doctor firing non-stop at a wall of encroaching Daleks. He was screaming, half frenzied.

"I thought I was going to die here," the Doctor said, watching his former self. Rose noted that he hadn't felt sad about it at the time, if anything his former self would've welcomed death.

"Arcadia," she said softly and he nodded.

"We were backed into our own corner," he said, "desperate, every one of us."

Still screaming, the war Doctor suddenly found himself blasterless and in a pristine white room. Wild eyed, he looked around and struggled as he was set upon by two Time Lords. "NO!" he raged, "Take me back! TAKE ME BACK!" The memory faded as the sedative worked its way through the War Doctor's veins.

He awoke to a vision of a woman in the high dress of Time Lord government.

"Fancy seeing you here," the War Doctor said with a sneer.

"We needed you," the woman stated flatly.

The Doctor at Rose's side introduced the woman as his former partner, two regenerations on from the one Rose had seen in previous memories.

"My platoon needed me," the War Doctor growled.

"Your platoon is dead. Arcadia is fallen. There is no more time," the woman said.

Sighing a deep sigh, the War Doctor closed his eyes briefly, grief for his comrades and the great city coursing through him. He groaned heavily as he sat up and got to his feet.

"So my dear, what do Time Lords do when they run out of time?" he cracked wise but stopped short when he saw what sat before them. It was a silver box the size of a refrigerator on its side.

The woman looked aside at him. "When there is no more time? My hope is that we preserve it, if not for ourselves, than for the rest of the universe."

The War Doctor was still speechless for several seconds longer, kept his distance from the box in the centre of the white room. "You know," he said tiredly, "Humans and Time Lords...we should've really gotten together." He looked aside at his former partner. "We would have made a force to scare the Daleks to bloody death."

Shaking his head, the War Doctor leaned against the wall as his former partner approached him, held up a tube about the size and shape of a cigarette attached to a chain. "No," he said warily to her. When still she held the chain before him he snarled at her, "there are a thousand killers about this place, WHY ME?!"

Finally, the woman dropped the chain to her side and for the first time looked at the War Doctor like she knew him, even like she might have cared for him. She raised a hand to stroke his chin and he closed his eyes against her touch, against the gentleness of it that felt so alien compared to everything his life had been for the past two centuries. His eyes fluttered open at her words.

"You have a love of all things in the universe that I have never seen matched." She almost smiled at him but the sadness in her eyes won out. "I would trust no one else not to hesitate to do what is necessary."

At this, the War Doctor screwed up his face and his former partner slipped the key on its chain into his hand, left him alone in the room. Only then did he note the Tardis in the corner near the door and grip his filthy hair in agony.

"What is that thing?" Rose asked from the Doctor's side but he looked nearly as forlorn as his former self, failed to answer her. She looked back to the memory as the War Doctor sprang from the floor of the pristine room toward the Tardis, shaking, tears streaking down his face.

With trembling hands the War Doctor set coordinates on the console, held on for the short ride. His footfalls were heavy as he walked down the tiled floor of the old Tardis. The doors opened out to another nearly white room and a woman sitting on a desk, grinning, holding a sheaf of papers to her chest. Her grin fell from her face when she saw the man that stepped from the Tardis.

"Father?" she asked tentatively, dropping her papers and hesitating only a second before she ran to him.

Rose inhaled sharply at the strength of the emotion the Doctor had felt when his child rushed into his arms. His love for his daughter had been unequalled, she now knew. In no other memories had anyone elicited anything close in him as when he first held her, held her then. The Doctor in the memory gripped her tightly, tears squeezing out from his tightly shut eyes and onto her shoulder.

"What is it? What's wrong?" his daughter whispered, crying her own self as his grief assaulted her mind. Their bond had been strong as well, few emotions held back from one another.

Eventually, the War Doctor withdrew from her and sniffed mightily, smiled while unendurable grief showed plainly in his eyes. "I just...needed to remember who I am," he forced himself to say before laying a hand on her cheek.

"Tell me what's happening!" his daughter demanded but the War Doctor shook his head and Rose understood that his daughter was not living the Time War in that moment. He had travelled back to see her.

Dropping his hand, the War Doctor turned on his heel, his face devoid of emotion, and returned to the Tardis, his child's screams dying once the doors closed. He stared blankly at the time rotor until it stopped moving and he stepped once more into the sterile room with its silver box. Explosions were now audible from outside the room and it shook violently from time to time.

The War Doctor knelt before the box and held the small tube up to it. A hole appeared on its otherwise unblemished surface and he inserted the tube with a trembling hand, causing a large red disc to glow atop the box. The strength he had seemed to gain from seeing his daughter failed him and he sagged, sobbing against the metal box.

"Doctor," Rose insisted, "what is it?" But still he was silent, unable to look away from the memory. Rose turned from him in frustration and saw three more Tardis' materialise in the other corners of the room. Her breath caught when the Northern Doctor stepped out first, his eyes darker than she had ever seen them. Red plimsolls appeared at the doors of the next Tardis and a man identical to the one who stood next to her exited it. Finally, the stranger in his bow tie peeked from the last Tardis.

They all three walked solemnly to the War Doctor's side and knelt beside him. Heaving on his grief, the War Doctor looked up at them and hope sparked in his face.

"If you're here...that means this doesn't work..." he said desperately, eyes searching the Northern Doctor's face. "The Time Lords live..."

The Northern Doctor's jaw clenched but he said nothing and the War Doctor whipped his head aside to look at the stranger. Young though he looked, the age in the stranger's eyes was all he conveyed, his lips remaining closed. Finally, the War Doctor looked over his shoulder at the man in the blue suit.

"I'm sorry," the blue suited Doctor said, dejected but resolved, "I'm so sorry."

Once more the War Doctor hung his head and cried, brought his hands to his face as he whispered names Rose recognised as belonging to his daughter, his brother, his nieces and nephews, his grandchildren.

Understanding hit her and Rose brought her hand to her mouth. "Oh god," she moaned, eyes racing over the innocuous looking box. "It was you," she said, looking to the Doctor at her side. He had his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking with tears. Rose rushed to wrap her arms around him, bring his head to her shoulder as he shook violently.

"I don't want to do this," the War Doctor whimpered.

"But you do it," Northern said with strength, placing his hand over the War Doctor's. "You remember it."

"Do your best to forget it," the stranger whispered, looking away as he placed his hand atop Northern's.

"Live to regret it," the plimsolled Doctor ground out through gritted teeth, his eyes on the red disc as he placed his hand atop the other three.

The Doctor whose memory this was looked up, eyes red rimmed and breathing ragged and Rose joined him. The four Doctors raised their hands as one and placed them atop the red disc. An alarm rang out and the future Doctor's stood and strode from their past self, still sagged infront of the device that would end his home world, his family, the heart of everything he was. The stranger was gone first, without a backward glance. Northern and the plimsolled Doctor both hesitated at the doors of their Tardis', just long enough to look at their former self one last time before closing the doors.

Rose was watching the memory through a haze of tears, the Doctor's hand gripped tightly in hers. A silence descended on the sterile room and the War Doctor looked up to his Tardis, stumbled toward her. He left the doors open as he clumsily ascended the walkway and leaned against the old console. Then he sank to his knees, his mind reaching out to his ship one last time and the world around him ended.

-#-

Rose was hugging the Doctor tightly when colour returned to the memory space. "Wait," she whispered into his ear and the memory slowed. Her hands swirled over his back soothingly as her mind opened to him fully.

"I killed them," he said softly into her shoulder, "all of them."

Rose sighed, her eyes free of tears. "She was right. A lesser person would've let the universe go t'hell." The Doctor hugged her tighter, his hands uncomfortably gripping the skin of her back. "There was no good decision to be made, Doctor, but there was a right one."

Eventually she sunk to the floor under his weight as he continued to cry silently into her, overwhelmed by her ready forgiveness and the memory itself. He had thought she would hate him for what he had done as he was certain anyone who found out would. But her scorn would have killed him and he expected it of her, one of the most compassionate people he had ever met across all of time and space.

"I know you'll never forgive yourself," she said softly as he finally pulled back, "but don't sit with it, yeah? Let me in when it gets hard."

He smirked wanly at her. "Not gonna have much choice in the matter now." Rose smiled properly at him and kissed the corner of his lips, holding him there for a long minute.

When they stood, the memory resumed. Regenerated, they watched the Northern Doctor awake, finding himself alive.

"Dead men don't need to regenerate," he said as he looked outside the Tardis. She had taken him back to the only other home he had ever known. London. They watched him fall to his knees in the doorway as he reached out to feel the Time Lords and, on hearing the most absolute, horrifying silence, came to understand what had happened. What he had done.

Rose had never thought she would see that man cry and it tore at her to watch him.

"Were you trying to kill yourself?" Rose asked as they stood on water in a clear night, watching Northern scrabble atop a massive hunk of ice in the Atlantic.

The Doctor shrugged. "I wasn't trying to live," he replied flatly and was again warmed when Rose didn't flinch from such a truth.

-#-

"Is that it?"

"Isn't that enough?"

She swatted him playfully, seeing the tired in his mental projection, feeling it surrounding her in his mind.

"We get to pit stop to watch me shag Peter in the Shed...then we're done."

A peal of laughter from her then.

She was grateful it was dark in the memory, both so that she couldn't see perfectly what was going on and so that he couldn't see her blushing furiously. Regardless, she knew he felt the twinge of excitement she got from the memory.

Rose fought that down, forced her mind back to the other things she had seen. "I think you're brilliant," she said aside to him, "just...beautiful and wonderful and heartbreaking...I get why Time Lords did this."

"How's that?" he asked quietly from her side in the dark, the warmth of her feelings steeling over him like a blanket.

"So they could fall even more in love with someone they already thought was perfect."

The sweetness of the moment was somewhat ruined by the remembered Doctor's lengthy groan as he came. Rose smirked and looked at her watch. "Talk about whiskey dick, god! You two were at it nearly an hour!" And they laughed out all of the hard things they had seen and remembered, laughed until they cried again.

-#-

"Do we...take a break or-"

"No, we're supposed to sustain the connection until it's done, 'til we've gone through all of our memories." He watched her closely, keenly aware what a strain the process must've been on her mind and body. His own human body was calling out for rest.

The sound of the waves outside the Tardis came to their minds and the Doctor raised a brow at Rose. "You're getting better at this."

"I was brilliant at this before," she said with mock defensiveness, smirking. Her mind had searched for and found the gentle crash on the shore, brought it into the memory space to soothe them a second.

"I don't think there's gonna be an...easier way for me to do this so I'll just...yeah?" she asked, tentative. The Doctor nodded encouragement, tried to support her fatigued mind with his own.

Just as Rose had seen many of the Doctor's memories on their original journey in the Tardis, so had he seen much of hers. The happy things, the things she wasn't ashamed of.

There were lots of fights with Jackie, Rose having been head strong to a fault, far too much like her mother. They argued over school, money, boys that Rose fancied, men that Jackie fancied.

Her first time, with Mickey no less, Rose fidgeted the whole memory through, blushed like she was twelve and rarely met the Doctor's smiling eyes.

"I'm better at this than that, right?" the Doctor asked, tilting his head to the side at the awkward, hurried mating ritual.

Rose smacked him. "Oi! He was 17, leave him alone. You've got, what? Like 888 years on him?"

The Doctor grinned and Rose fidgeted some more. He was never abashed at having her see his memories of the times he had had sex and it infuriated her. Mostly because it confirmed his opinion that all humans were prudes and he was a smug arse about it.

In no time at all, they were at Canary Wharf watching Rose pounding on the wall that was just a wall, no longer a gateway back to their universe. The Doctor ached for her and for the first time they appreciated how certain memories had the same quality of feeling for them both. She had cried and railed, he had stayed still as death, both had felt the raw echoing pain of the others loss.

She had been bed ridden for a week after her arrival in the new universe, had cried harder and longer than she thought possible. The Doctor knelt next to the memory of Rose and reached out to touch her cheek, hurting right along with her, for her.

After that week, she called up Mickey and told him she wanted to work at Torchwood. She was signed up for basic personnel training and had Mickey teach how to drive in the evenings. He also made sure she had a bench in Tech two, mentioned not so subtly that he'd prefer she stayed on the tech side of things.

"M'not smart like that, Mickey," she argued with him, shaking her head. He hadn't explained why it was he was so worried about her shipping off to basic training.

She was the only woman out of 50 future personnel that arrived at Eastbourne. Fully capable of having men as mates, Rose was none the less intimidated by the atmosphere that prevailed when 49 of them were crammed together with her. Intimidated and isolated, she spoke rarely except to repel some sexist remark or overtly sexual overture.

-#-

"What?" Rose asked in disbelief, frowning hard at Trent Wolfram as she stood at attention along with her fellows.

"That's fifty Tyler!" Wolfram boomed, striding to her. Rose glared at him a second before dropping into a plank and counting off her pushups. "Do not _speak_ without permission."

"13, 14, what's the point of any a' this if we're s'posed to just leave our people behind? 16, 17..." Rose growled angrily from the ground.

His face devoid of expression, Wolfram put his not insubstantial booted foot down on Rose's back. Grunting, she quivered under the added weight before slowly sagging, her arms giving out from under her.

Wolfram knelt next to her on the balls of his feet, looked her in the eyes. "The point is not to leave people behind, Tyler, it is to assess the situation and your chances of survival if you are hindered by wounded. Start again."

Rose swallowed down her anger. "One, two..."

-#-

Beyond the first few nights, Rose stopped sleeping in the barracks which meant she by and large stopped sleeping. Her fellow recruits were getting more brazen at an alarming rate and she didn't trust them to leave her alone while she slept.

Torchwood's tech library could be accessed with appropriate clearance on any note screen and Rose had asked for the clearance from Mickey after her first week at basic. Where she spent her night changed regularly so as to avoid a pattern and Rose could be found reading up on Torchwood's spaceships in the darkened mess or several nooks about the grounds in general. As the season wore on, she found it harder to stay outside the whole of the evening.

The facilities at Eastbourne hadn't been designed with gender segregation in mind at all. Rose had taken to wolfing down her dinner or breakfast to afford time in the showers. Three weeks in, the rest of the recruits had caught on.

Rose raced from the barracks towards the showers with her towel and soap under her arm. Darkness had settled already and her breath fogged in the early night. She had just stripped off her panties when a whistle split the silence and bounced off of the white tiles. She looked up and her heart stopped. Some thirty of her fellow trainees had crowded around the entrance to the showers and stood gawking at her.

If she hadn't been terrified, Rose might've blushed. There was no other exit and she knew the only chance she stood was bluffing her way out. Forcing nonchalance, Rose turned on the tap and stepped under the stream of water, began running her hands through her hair.

"Think she likes an audience!"

"There we go, sweetheart!"

"How 'bout some company?"

At Rose's side watching all this, the Doctor seethed. "Why did you do this?"

Rose looked at him like she might hit him. "Needed a bloody shower, didn't I?"

He swatted at the air in front of him as though annoyed by a gnat. "No, no, no. Why Torchwood? Why this training?" The jeering crowd grew louder in the memory, moved closer to the Rose living it.

Better comprehending his question, Rose returned to watch the memory unflinchingly, arms crossed over her chest. "Because I'd lost you...but Torchwood could at least get me back to the stars."

It took more willpower than the Doctor wished it did to look back at the scene unfolding. The Rose at his side and the woman in the memory were both strong enough to face it but it was making him sick.

Keeping the wash brief while trying not to look hurried, Rose wrapped a towel around herself to the consternation of the assembled. The adrenaline coursing through her system touched the Doctor as she stooped to gather her clothes amidst the renewed cat calls. She stood straight, faced them down and thought of her mother. Just before she reached the wall of men, before one of them could reach for her towel, a voice boomed out into the confined space.

"What the Sam bloody hell is going on?!"

Wolfram parted the crowd like Moses and stood, moustache bristling, glaring at them all. "Less time for evening meal is the lesson here," he snarled, "enough time for shower parties, eh? Everyone not in a bloody towel and therefore here without any damn cause, twenty laps of the grounds. NOW!"

The trainees scattered until it was just Rose, Wolfram and the sound of a dripping tap. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, staring impassively at Rose. Clearing her throat, Rose dropped her clothes and soap, straightened her back just so and brought her arms parallel to her body.

Wolfram's moustache twitched just so. "Did you just stand to attention, Tyler?"

"Sir, yes, sir!" Rose barked.

"At ease, soldier," Wolfram said softly, turning from her. "Put your clothes on."

The Doctor let out a breath he hadn't realised he had been holding.

-#-

A week later Rose was sitting alone in the mess during dinner, scanning over a note screen. She ate like it was a chore, too exhausted to care beyond getting the calories her system was dying for. On average she was doing 120 pushups and situps, 40 chin ups and 30 laps of the grounds every day and that was on top of training. So when she was ordered by her Corporal to report to the Staff Sergeant she bit back the desire to tell her commanding officer to fuck off and simply rose from her table.

"Come in," Wolfram ordered from behind his office door and Rose entered, closed the door and stood at attention after a salute. "At ease, private."

Rose relaxed, clasped her hands to the small of her back but stared at the wall above Wolfram's head where he sat. He appeared to be going over a note screen himself, hardly aware of her presence.

"When I signed up in 1976...it was still customary to take the piss out of each other," Wolfram said in a tone that was far more conversational than Rose had ever heard from him up to that point. "Mostly good natured back then...mind, there were no women in the forces." He put his left elbow onto his desk, held up his middle and ring fingers while still looking at the note screen. "Didn't mean there weren't consequences. I used to be able to pull off a vibrato on my violin, can't anymore. No one thought, did they? Trigger finger's on your right hand after all. Little casualties before we'd ever seen a battle."

He stood and walked to Rose, regarded her from the same stance she was in. "I suspect you would survive and thrive whatever came your way during training...you're pissed as hell and focused." He held out a small blaster the size of brass knuckles. "I'd like to see the scars you'll get out in the field...not here."  
Rose frowned at the weapon he had extended her, uncomprehending and a little wary of a trick. They were only allowed their assigned weapons and those were locked up at the end of every day's training.

Wolfram nodded at her and Rose inhaled before taking the blaster and tucking it into her right boot.

Wolfram strode back round his desk and sat. "I think you'll make a brilliant soldier, Tyler. Get some sleep," he said knowingly, "dismissed."

Rose didn't need telling twice anymore, not after the first few days of being asked if she were deaf upon her slow response to an order. As she opened the door, Wolfram bellowed, "and if I catch you at it again, I'll take you up in a Helios and kick you out of an airlock myself! Clear?"

"Sir, yes, sir!" Rose replied stiffly, closing the door and walking swiftly past her Corporal in the hall outside.

The Doctor watched Rose stride into the barracks of that memory's night and lay down on her bunk, his mouth dry with the fear she felt. The Rose at his side was calm though and slipped her hand into his to steady him. He was too in tune with what she had felt then though and started to breath faster, gripping Rose's hand tighter.

On her bunk, Rose had slipped the blaster from her boot when the lights went out and tucked it under her pillow, her hand still on it. Her other hand rested on her chest near her throat, ready to defend that vital point. She wasn't disappointed when it was the first place they reached for.

The memory was dark and all that could be heard was Rose grunting in her efforts to fend them off as they spat lewd comments at her.

"Stop!" the Doctor snarled and the memory froze, the sounds with it. He stood with his head in his hands, the adrenaline of the remembered Rose coursing through his veins. He felt sick, dizzy and more than a little responsible. "I don't know if I can watch this," he whispered when Rose laid a hand on his arm.

"Holding back stuff like this is what cocked this up the last time ya did this, wasn't it?" she said softly and he nodded into his palms. Rose rubbed at his arm. "Come on, she makes it out okay, promise."

Standing behind him, her arms around him, Rose watched as the memory resumed, the sound of her struggles with it and the Doctor fidgeted stiffly. He reached for her hands and held them tightly. "I'm sorry," he whispered, felt Rose shake her head against is shoulder.

A second later, blue light shot through the scene, six times and the room duly erupted in panic as those who hadn't joined the attack but hadn't helped began yelling. A second after that, the lights flicked on to show Rose standing at the foot of her bunk, blaster levelled, five bodies on the floor about it.

Chest heaving, Rose looked like hell fire incarnate, all the moreso for the blood dripping unabated from her nose.

They watched as she called to those who had been willing to stand idly by to help her. Her attackers were tied up to the flagpole on the grounds, naked, and left. She cleaned up her face, went back to her bunk and slept like a baby, the blaster still in her hand under her pillow.

Rose was smiling at herself in the memory, the Doctor saw as he looked over his shoulder at her. "We like Trent," he stated.

"We like Trent a lot," Rose affirmed.

Before the morning run,Wolfram asked, standing before the five very cold trainees, who was responsible, and Rose didn't hesitate in stepping forward. When asked why, she looked significantly at her attackers before responding, "practical joke gone a bit too far, sir."

Wolfram had eyed her hard and nodded. "And the burns? They a part of the joke? Because those look like blaster marks, Tyler."

"Can't speak for those, sir," Rose said evenly. Wolfram had looked at the trussed up men and Jamison, their leader of sorts and perhaps the one who had given Rose the most trouble, shook his head. "Playing with the tazers two days ago, sir."

And that had been that. Rose slept in the bunks after that and no one dared set foot in the showers when she went to them after dinner.

-#-

A month in the trainees were given a week's leave and Rose returned to London to her mother's delight. It was while wolfing down a meal with feral concentration that Jackie announced she was pregnant. Rose had looked up at her mother, mouth full of food, her eyes only flickering to Pete. Swallowing, Rose got up and smiled crookedly as she hugged Jackie.

"Mum, that's great!" she enthused.

"You didn't think it was great," the Doctor said, observing Rose and her half hearted smile. It had been hard watching her brilliance get stamped down and pissed on until she was the woman he had met two years ago, stiff and hard to read.

"No," Rose conceded at his side, "not at the time."

Pete came into her room that night, not bothering to knock, and Rose glared at him. "I want you out before the baby's born," he said simply.

Rose huffed out a bemused breath. "You think I want t'stay here for eight more months?"

After he had left, Rose had locked the door and curled up in her bed, thought of her father, the sweet man her real father had been, and cried. Right as she had drifted off, the Doctor saw the image of his former self, the Northern Doctor flit through her mind. He heaved a heavy sigh. Pete had never even attempted to establish a relationship with Rose, not in that universe. A child of his own with Jackie on the way, he had wanted her out of his home life. The Doctor slipped an arm around Rose and hugged her to his side.

The short leave saw Rose keeping up a routine of exercise, sleeping heavily and taking driving lessons from Mickey every night.

Weeks later, her basic training halfway done, Rose went up with the trainees in the Horizon for their first flight. The Doctor felt her heart ache as she looked at the earth surrounded by the stars.

It was to have been a boring trip, with Rose and Jamison assigned to an experienced crew member to monitor the transport panels. No one was being transported anywhere, thus making it one of the dullest jobs.

"Don't touch anything," their assigned crew member warned as he excused himself to go to the bathroom.

The Doctor snorted at the memory and sure enough, Jamison began fiddling with dials the second he was unobserved. Rose watched him with mild interest until he started playing with a panel she vaguely recognized. "Cut it out, that looks like a transmat," she warned. Thought they had effected something of a detant, Rose and the other trainees, particularly Jamison, were far from on friendly terms.

"Shut it," he growled back and Rose sighed, began trying to shut down the transmat before he did something stupid.

"Oh dear," the Doctor said with a shake of his head, "the tech was pretty rudimentary at this time, wasn't it?"

"Yep," Rose replied at his side.

"So dermal contact would've been required for a signal lock, hmm?" the Doctor continued.

"Yeah," Rose confirmed as the memory shifted instantly and they were now looking at the remembered Rose and Jamison as they stared cluelessly around an alien vessel.

The Doctor looked at the ship's architecture and sighed, "don't tell me-"

"Oh yes," Rose said at his side, smirking at herself as only one who has learned from their mistakes can do.

"Jeapardy friendly," the Doctor sing-songed and Rose smacked him.

In the memory, Rose was looking around them with sharp focus, breathing hard, keenly aware of the potential danger they were in. Jamison laughed and Rose clamped a hand over his mouth.

"Quiet!" she hissed but he shook her hand off.

"What, scared of getting in trouble? We'll just tell whoever we come across that we were ordered down here." He looked disgusted at Rose's cowardice but she stared at him like he had a third eye.

"Are ya daft? Do you really think we're still on board the Horizon?" she said incredulously.

"What?" Jamison asked then looked about. "Where else would we be?"

"I dunno," Rose said, silently thanking Space that he hadn't beamed them into the sun. "But this isn't ours..."

Approaching footsteps, heavy and fast, made Rose pull at Jamison and get them crouched behind a piece of wall that jutted out. Jamison stared at the stout, blue armored aliens with a gobsmacked expression but Rose was desperately trying to listen for even a single word of their strange language that she might recognize. Nothing about their appearance was familiar to her. When the two aliens rounded the far corner of the hallway they had found themselves in, Rose jammed her hand over Jamison's mouth before he could start to babble.

Suitably calmed, Rose removed her hand and he stared at her wide eyed. "Those were aliens."

Rose looked at him dubiously. "Ya think? We need to get off this ship and back to ours."

"How? We don't even know how we got here!" Jamison hissed and Rose felt the panic start to drip off him.

"I told ya, transmat."

"I thought you were making that up, trying to sound...I dunno, tough," Jamison squeaked.

Rose sighed internally, clenched her jaw as she set off at a crouch, her training mercifully kicking in. "Well, I wasn't. And I know enough that if these aliens were anywhere near the earth, they'd have t'be able to transport or...teleport...or transmat themselves somehow."

"How do you know that?" Jamison asked, staring perplexedly at her back.

A memory of the Doctor's smiling face flashed through Rose's mind and she pushed it away impatiently. He wasn't there to help her, she'd have to help herself. Abruptly, she stopped and looked over her shoulder at Jamison. "All right, this time, really, don't touch anything, got that? Just follow me and cover the rear."

"We don't have any weapons!" Jamison hissed.

"Got that, thanks," Rose said, fighting her own fear. That was the easiest thing to do, second nature after her travels with the Doctor.

They carried on until they eventually came across a walkway over two of the stout aliens who seemed to be posted on a watch. Jamison plucked at her to return the way they had came but she swatted him away, listened hard to the alien's conversation. Frustrated, she watched them about to part before they said farewell with "Sontar, huh!" and her eyes went wide.

The Doctor smiled. "Remembered my bed times stories about the Sontarans, eh?" Rose shook her head at his side.

Sitting back against the wall, Rose glared at Jamison. "You're not just stupid, you've got the luck of a bloody black cat, too."

He frowned at her incomprehensibly.

"You've managed to beam us aboard a ship full of the most militant aliens in the galaxy. We need to get off a' here without them finding us or they'll probably declare war on earth."

Stupidly, Jamison followed Rose again when she moved off, still at a crouch. "How do you know that? I don't remember them from our briefings on alien lifeforms!"

"Friend a mine knew them," Rose said dismissively.

Jamison was so intent on following Rose, keeping a lookout behind them and trying to figure out how she knew any of this that he missed the panel on the wall where they stopped to look around a corner. His hand slipped to it and the flooring of the walkway just behind him hissed away. They both looked back at the sound and Jamison slipped as he did so, fell eight meters to the walkway below. Rose just managed to bite back his name but he made enough noise for the two of them. As he writhed in pain, Rose could hear muffled voices and foot falls.

"Shit!" she said under her breath before dropping down the hole in the grating after him. Rolling, she quickly righted herself and picked Jamison up under his armpits.

"I can't move my legs, I think my back might be-" Jamison cringed.

"Shut up!" she said in his ear as she dragged him. Her heart hammered in her chest half in fear and half from the exertion. It was only a matter of moments before the voices she heard found them. Her eyes fell on a panel on the wall and the three fingered impression next to it.

The Doctor felt her heart lurch as she looked at the transport panel.

"I took so much for granted 'round you," Rose said beside him. "Didn't even know how to program a simple transport beam. Didn't even think to look up the Horizon's arch signal code when I got on board, just in case."

"Not like I ever taught you about any of that," the Doctor said, accepting his share of the blame for the predicament the woman in the memory was in. "Always just wanted to be off doing something or talking to you about...well, something more interesting than arch signal theory." He rubbed at the side of his nose and thought about all the nights he had spent with Rose in her room, talking about the universe, not it's technology.

Jamison heavy and shaking in her arms, Rose's eyes raced over the alien language on the panel. She blinked at the sweat that fell in her eyes, thought of the Doctor again as the voices sounded mere paces from them. She raised a hand over the panel, hesitated, felt her fear master her. "Doctor," she whispered, closing her eyes.

When she opened them again, they were on the bridge of the Horizon, Wolfram and the flight crew looking at them incredulously.

"Tyler, Jamison, what the flying fu-"

But Rose was on her feet in an instant, looking at the vid screen of the space in front of them. "Did ya contact them?" she asked, voice steadier than she would've thought it would be.

"Tyler!" Wolfram boomed, about to lay into her before Rose rounded on him, her eyes afire.

"The ship we just came from is not friendly and they can't know we're here or that we were ever on board, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?" she commanded with such vehemence that Wolfram was momentarily shocked into silence. "DID'YA CONTACT THEM?" she asked again, louder this time.

"No, ma'am," one of the men at the commands answered, "standard protocol for unknown vessel types is to maintain communications silence unless engaged first."

Rose sighed heavily with relief.

"Which makes me wonder what the hell you two were doing on board," Wolfram asked lowly.

Rose was about to open her mouth when Jamison spoke from the floor. "My fault sir. Tyler told me not to play with the controls at the transport panels," he admitted weakly.

"You are seven different kinds of stupid, Jamison. Get on your feet, private."

"Think he might've broken his back, sir," Rose offered.

Wolfram almost sighed but looked unamused instead. "Get medics. Tyler, follow me."

Rose was grilled on the Sontorans by Wolfram for a while and though she couldn't offer him much information, he was never the less impressed that she knew anything at all about an alien race earth hadn't encountered yet. Dismissed, Rose made her way down to the infirmary and looked in on Jamison.  
"What's the word? You ever gonna walk again?" she asked, arms crossed over her chest.

Jamison smiled tiredly at her. "Broke a couple vertebrae, pinched a few nerves. Need surgery when we get back but the docs think I'll walk, yeah."

Rose nodded and was about to leave when he called her back. "Hey Tyler..." and Rose leaned close to him when he beckoned her with a tilt of his head. "I would've raped you...and I would've thought it was funny," he confessed, eyes conflicted as he did so.

"I know," Rose said, unsure how she felt as she looked into his face.

"Why did you help me?"

Considering him a minute, Rose finally said, "do ya remember...like, first week a trainin', Wolfram told us to leave our wounded behind if we thought they'd slow us down?" Jamison nodded. "I think that's bull shit," Rose said and stood up. "If we're ever workin' together at Torchwood, I'll never leave ya behind. I won't leave anyone behind."

He called to her just before she left. "Yeah, but...all that shit I did to you...tried to do to you..."

Rose cocked a brow at him. "Yeah, maybe you should stop doin' shit like that."

-#-

Two months of pay and no expenses left Rose free to buy a car. She passed her drivers exam flawlessly and picked up her jeep on her next leave. When she returned to Eastbourne, Jamison had been spreading word of what she had done and what she knew. While not exactly friendly, interactions between Rose and the trainees became at least cordial.

She was almost done the second course of training when she had the dream.

 _Rose..._

Starting awake, she had sat breathing and listening hard until she heard his voice again. She brought her hand to her mouth to stifle the cry that wanted to escape as tears stung at her eyes.

Wolfram was not inclined to let her go and Rose was eventually forced to contact Pete to get him to intervene. That was how she had wound up travelling with her not-father to Norway and Jackie had contacted Mickey who had likewise insisted on coming.

The Doctor watched her break down after he had faded from the beach and his own heart felt raw at the memory. At his side, Rose wiped away a tear and hugged herself. "Those first few months, I still thought you might find a way," she laughed, then sniffed at the tears that threatened. In the memory, Rose choked on her sorrow and clung to her mother but they felt how inconsolable she had been. "I didn't think it'd be possible to miss ya any more than I already did," she admitted softly, "until I lost hope." The Doctor closed his eyes at her words and bit back another apology. He had already said he was sorry for so many things she had shown him in her memories.

"Thought he might've stayed," Pete said in the car on the way back, "overestimated what you meant to him."

"Pete!" Jackie scolded but Rose didn't take the bait. She remained silent the drive home and went to a hotel despite Mickey and her mother's protests.

In the spartan hotel room, in the dark she had sat against the bed on the floor with her legs drawn to her chest and tried to cry. Seeing him on the beach had been like another dream, though, and her battered heart couldn't find the will to shed tears for him again. Never the less, she was exhausted and that got the better of her. She drifted off still curled up on the floor.

The dream was so lifelike, at first she thought it was real and the past year and a bit was the world she visited while she slept. Sunlight near blinded Rose as they sat in the heat and heavy musk of the Colosseum. At her side, the Northern Doctor's eyes were alight as new fodder for the bloody games was raised from the bowels of the pit.

"Fantastic!" he enthused and Rose couldn't frown at him anymore than she already was due to the light.

"This is sick," she said, unimpressed.

"Not the fightin'," Northern said, looking aside at her, his stone grey eyes alight, "the pulley and platform systems they used to keep the whole thing going, this technology was state of the art!"

Rose shook her head. "Nothing about this is...artful." Then she looked at him as if a thought occurred to her.

"Have your eyes always been grey?" she asked, suddenly feeling very uneasy.

He smiled as he looked on at the spectacle before him. "Are you remembering the idiot in the suit?"

"What?" Rose asked and the Colosseum, the crowds, the smell, began to fade from around them.

Northern looked aside at her, catching her eyes again and Rose inhaled deeply as the year came back to her. She reached out to touch Northern's face and he smiled gently at her. Throwing her arms around him, Rose cried in her dream. "I lost you," she sobbed, digging into leather she hadn't felt under her hands in what felt like an eternity.

Sitting up from the embrace even as Rose strained against his doing so, Northern grinned at her. "Yeah, but the psychic power that idiot used to get in touch has given you back something I tried very hard to keep from you."

Rose frowned at him and he pulled her back into a hug. Having him so close sparked the memory of the last time she had been physically that close to him, of his lips on hers.

"Lucky you were asleep," the Doctor commented from the sidelines of the memory as golden light blinded their field of vision. He watched the Bad Wolf return to Rose with apprehension in his features. "Might've killed you if you'd been awake."

Rose shrugged as they watched her remembered self return to training. They had moved on to the Helios and Rose flew hers without prompting or comment from her instructors, the controls being basic to the parts of the Doctor's mind she had absorbed as Bad Wolf. She finished training early with commendations on Helios manoeuvres.

Her first week at the Tower, Rose transported herself on board the Sycorax ship that had a third of the planet enthralled via blood control. The Doctor felt that the memory and the Rose at his side still regretted what she had done.

Rose was as good with a blade as the Doctor, which wasn't that good. But her Torchwood training gave her manoeuvrability and, despite the gash on her shoulder and taking the butt of a sword to her cheek, Rose held her own. In the struggle, her sword hand slipped though, and slid through her opponent's gut.

"Hadn't meant to kill him," Rose said quietly, watching herself watch the Sycorax die.

"I know," the Doctor said quietly, taking her hand.

When they transported her back, Rose stood in the midst of Tech two clutching her shoulder as the assembled personnel and scientists applauded her. She fended off Mickey's hug and walked past her grinning coworkers to the stairs, found her way to the infirmary. Once there she looked around at the medics as they moved about, uncertain. She shakily called out, "medic," and Sandra Ellis pulled her into one of the rooms at the back of the infirmary without a word. Rose ground her teeth, crushed her eyes shut to keep from crying out but eventually was able to look at the wound as it was stitched. Sandra looked at her appraisingly.

-#-

Lying on her right side for the wound on her shoulder, Rose stroked at her mother's growing belly as they lay in Jackie's bed a few night's later. Pete was out of town and Jackie had asked Rose to come and stay while he was gone.

"You're so quiet lately, sweetheart," Jackie whispered in the dark, touching her daughter's cheek. Lately was an understatement. Rose rarely strung three words together for anyone since arriving in the new universe.

Rose didn't reply. Half of her mind was on a piece of tech back at the Tower, half was still struggling to get past the face of the Sycorax she had killed.  
Jackie inhaled deeply and Rose braced herself for one of her mother's concerned lectures. "Mickey thinks..."

Rose tried to look at her mother's face when she didn't continue right away but it was obscured in shadow. "Mickey thinks what?" she asked a bit more sharply than she had intended.

"That maybe you're trying to get yourself...hurt," Jackie finished tentatively and Rose frowned at her as she felt the other woman hold her breath.

"What?"

"Since you said goodbye to the Doctor, love! The Sycorax, you didn't have to go up on your own, Mickey says, and in trainin' you were flyin' those ships like you didn't care-" Jackie rushed to lay out the evidence Mickey had given for his concern but Rose cut her off.

"Mum, just...stop," Rose said, sharper still, fury at Mickey for making her mother worry when she was months gone making her set her jaw.

After a few minutes tense silence, Jackie said, "just tell me you're not thinkin' to-"

"Mum," Rose cut her off again and brought her hand back to the swell of the other woman's stomach. Calmed a little, Rose thought of the Northern Doctor and his ridiculous emergency programme, the pride and warmth in his eyes when he'd told her to have a good life, to have a good life for him. She felt tears prick at her eyes and had to remind herself she was with her mother, not at Torchwood, and that there was no need to be guarded, not really.

"I'm not tryin' to get myself killed, mum," she said, voice cracking, hot tears spilling down her face at the memory of a man in a beaten leather coat. "I'm tryin' so hard t'live."

The Doctor and Rose watched the two women curl into each other on the bed, the Rose in the memory sobbing at the thought of a life without the Doctor. When they had stood witnessing the Doctor's memory of his Northern self scrabbling onto an ice flow in the Atlantic shortly after the time war, Rose had asked if he had really been trying to die without judgement. Returning the favour, the Doctor remained silent while he listened to her remembered self cry and tightened his grip on the hand of the woman at his side.


	13. Till Time Do Us Part

What can I say, I wanted to know what Rose got up to finding 10...

-#-

Half of Rose's time was spent with personnel, mostly working with them on the ships, half with Tech in her first months at The Tower. A bit of Polvit transmitter tech, some Anjut processors and ingenuity on Rose's part to shrink it all down saw the first prototype comms devices made. Within two months they were standard issue for all Torchwood staff and everyone thought they were brilliant, that Bad Wolf was brilliant.

Increasingly, Pete had Rose sit in on meetings on the Boring floors. She illuminated the purpose of newly discovered bits of tech, translated signals they had received and because Pete couldn't stop her, offered her opinion on policy. It wasn't long before she had her own office.  
Wolfram also had her down to Eastbourne to assist in training and Rose began headhunting the military, navy and special forces for new personnel. Her interest also drifted toward finding science workers who were a better fit for the organization in her mind and the Doctor smirked to see her attending science conferences.

"Brilliant," he whispered, a happy smirk on his face as he watched Rose approach a polymers chemist and ask about catalytic conversion rates.

"Was mostly you," Rose shrugged at his side but he spun on her, shaking is head vehemently.

"No, no, no, no. My memories were like...the paints, all in tubes and neat and tidy, and the canvas pristine and waiting. You were the painter of all this, gave Torchwood colour and texture and form."

Rose raised a brow at his artistic reference but eventually smiled for him, just a little pleased with his assessment.

-#-

During a battle in low orbit with the Xai Moche, it was Rose who spat out, in Xai Mochian, that article 15 of the Shadow Proclamation demanded peaceful contact between members. She had held her breath after dodging one last shot of laser and steering her Helios around the Xai Moche ship, hoping like hell that the Shadow Proclamation existed in that universe. Eventually the Xai Moche had responded that she was rusty, given her the word for 'directive' instead of proclamation and invited Rose aboard.

The Doctor laughed harder than Rose had ever seen when, in return for the delicate silver pin the Xai Moche had offered in peace, Rose gave them the packet of Marmite that came standard in the meagre field rations Torchwood personnel always carried. And they loved it.  
Upon returning to earth amidst cheers from personnel and higher ups at the Tower, Rose had made contact with the Shadow Directive and catapulted the Earth into intergalactic politics. After that, no one referred to her as 'private Tyler' any longer and Bad Wolf sat in on every high ranking meeting on the Boring floors.

-#-

Rose rented a flat at her mother's insistence but the only time she seemed to spend at was when she worked on the Tardis crystal.

Upon coming home one night to find that Jackie had brought by framed photos of herself and Mickey with her, Rose had a sudden idea. She had dug out her old phone, the one that had been in her pants pocket during the battle at Canary Wharf, and scrolled through the pictures. At ten at night, Rose went back to work and enhanced and printed up two pictures, one of her and the Northern Doctor, and one of her and the incarnation of him she had last seen. She stuck these up in her workstation at home, above the slowly growing Tardis crystal.

Jackie bought her daughter living room furniture. Rose didn't notice for two weeks.

-#-

In her defense, she was distracted by the one sentence report one of their astronomers gave in a meeting that no one else seemed perturbed by. They had lost a star in the theta quadrant.

Rose spent twenty minutes explaining that stars were ancient and didn't just 'turn off', not without a great big super nova. She also had to explain that the boundaries of space as they knew them were actually insignificant on the scheme of the universe, that the universe was in fact larger than their best scientists' guesses and that the theta quadrant was practically within spitting distance of the earth.

When no one at the table looked inclined to care any more than they had twenty minutes earlier, Rose had simply absconded from the meeting with the astronomer. It was then that he informed her that this was one of twenty such stars they had lost in the past several months and that they seemed to be going out at an accelerating pace.

The Doctor shook his head as he watched Rose barely keep herself under control during the month it took her to convince Pete to take the loss of the stars seriously. It had given her time though and when Pete finally asked what the hell it was she planned to do about in front of a boardroom full of Torchwood higher ups, Rose hadn't hesitated. She slapped down blueprints with 'Dimension Canon' scrawled on them in Peter's hand and informed them they needed to find the Doctor.

Torchwood Tower came alive with preparations to send Bad Wolf and a team of her handpicked personnel into another universe. Rose fell asleep at the tables in the Shed more often than in her own bed and the scientists came to love her as much as they feared her.

" **Bad Wolf? We finally have the sample of D-174 ready**." Rose's comm sparked as she knelt next to one of the dimension canon's route phasers.

"Bring it up," she replied without looking away from the panel she was working on. When the Chem worker approached her with a tile of grayish metal about five by five centimetres, though, Rose's eyes lit up.

Snatching it from the worker, Rose strode to the Shed and returned to the main room of Tech two with a large rifle. She hucked the tile into the air, brought her rifle to her shoulder, squinted along the sights and shot the tile down. With a manic glint Rose could now appreciate as being very Doctor, the Rose in the memory knelt down to pick up the smoking piece of metal and examine it. "Brilliant!" she crowed.

"Bad Wolf," the Chem worker said dejectedly, "you had the entire Chem division working on that one sample for the past month."

"Sure did, Grant, and now we know we've got a weapon that'll work against the Daleks. Trust me, if you'd been workin' on that sample for a year it would'a been worth it."

Kneeling down next to Rose in the memory, the Doctor looked at her with wonder as she considered the hole in the hunk of dalekanium. He looked up at Rose who stood a step behind her remembered self, "how did you know there'd be Daleks?"

Rose shrugged. "I didn't, just...didn't wanna take the chance that there was and not be prepared." The Doctor grinned at her, delighted. Rose turned away to hide her smile.

Slinging the rifle over her shoulder for expediency, Rose went back to the panel on the dimension canon she had been working at. Her comm buzzed again. " **Bad Wolf, your mother is calling for you.** "

The Doctor snorted. "That's a bit embarrassing."

In the memory, Rose shook her head, her blonde locks swaying as she took out a delicate bundle of wires from the panel. "Tell her I'm busy," she said impatiently, adding a curse in a dialect of Odelphin that the Doctor had been fond of.

" **I'm sorry Bad Wolf, she's insistent, says it's time.** "

"Time?" Rose questioned, "time for-" She looked up and into the middle distance. "Oh shit," she whispered.

" **Come again, Bad Wolf?** "

"Um," another curse in a different language, "yeah, just...tell her I'm coming." Rose stood and looked about her at the science workers purposefully moving around the dimension canon. She started directing them with tasks that would take up the next several hours, walking about in a flurry until Peter touched her lightly on her elbow.

"Bad Wolf, it's okay, we can handle things for a night," Peter said, eyes flicking nervously between Rose and the floor.

Almost smiling at him, Rose nodded and strode from Tech, her comm at her lips to tell Mickey to meet her at the jeep.

Weaving between cars and topping traffic barriers, Rose delivered herself and Mickey to the hospital recklessly and arrived at the front desk breathless, laughing, Mickey on her heels. They had of course beaten Pete and Rose held Jackie's hand and stroked the other woman's forehead affectionately, smiling like herself for the first time since she'd arrived in the other universe. When Pete did arrive he attempted to stare Rose away from Jackie but Rose glowered right back at him with the most intimidating expression the Doctor had ever seen on her face. Pete went to Jackie's other side and did his best to ignore Rose all together.

The labour progressed quickly and soon the doctor was asking if anyone wanted to see the baby come from behind his face mask. Mickey and Pete looked horrified at the very suggestion. Rose asked if she could catch.

"I needed something," Rose said as she watched herself, in scrubs, kneeling at her mother's feet to be the first person to hold her brother. The Doctor looked aside at her, at the age in her eyes, then back to the memory and the hyper look of wonder she had worn as she pulled the sticky, blood streaked form of Tony free. "Didn't know it 'til then, but it turned out it was Tony."

Smiling at her, the Doctor stuffed his hands in his pockets and returned his attention to Rose as she handed the bundle of blankets Tony was concealed in to her mother, looking every bit the woman he had met five years earlier.

-#-

Pete looked like a genius the day the news networks picked up the story that the stars were going out and Britain could say they were already working on it. Months passed and progress on the dimension canon was slower than Rose liked. There were so many memories of her throwing down her work at the small hours of the morning in frustration. Invariably, she would go to the mansion and pace under the big windows with Tony in her arms, every time counting more and more missing sparks of light in her sky.

It took more than a year for the canon to be completed and by then, the world was panicking. Half the stars that people had known since childhood were gone and the ever darkening sky made people terrified of the night.

Rose was smart enough to be anxious not just at night; nothing precluded the sun or the earth from being taken at any time. The weight of people's fear settled heavily onto her as everyone she worked with began to look at her with desperate hope.

Once the canon was completed, Rose informed 10 Torchwood employees that they would go with her, Trent Wolfram and Sandra Ellis among them, and that they should say goodbye to their families. Rose went to Mickey first that night.

As Rose had rocketed to the upper levels of Torchwood in record time, Pete had assigned Mickey to head of the fledgling Secondary Operations. Rose had decided and Pete had agreed that Mickey would stay behind from Operation Doctor, incase Rose didn't return and they needed a guiding presence at Primary to rival that of Bad Wolf. Mickey wasn't surprised when she showed up at his doorstep the night before Operation Doctor was to commence.

She held him tight, breathed him in, appreciated the feel of him, this man who had been the boy she had known her whole life, one of the only things her universe had given her. Watching the memory, Rose stepped from the Doctor's side to touch Mickey's back a second before retreating. The Doctor caught her hand and pulled her close as Mickey kissed her in the memory.

The kiss turned into a demand and he pushed Rose against the wall as his hands slipped beneath her shirt. Pulling him tightly to her, Rose considered it for a minute, her body hungry after too long without, her heart conscious that she might never see him again. But she broke the kiss and stilled his hands, left their foreheads resting together as they breathed heavily.

He wasn't young the way he used to be she had realised as their eyes had met then.

"Do you think you'll see him again?" Mickey asked and Rose hadn't flinched from the question the way she would've when they were both younger.

"No," she said after a minute, and the Doctor winced.

He pushed into her, frowning deeply as his hands slipped around the bare skin of her back to draw her closer. "Then stay!" he whispered fiercely. "Stay w'me and we can find a way here to-"

"No, Mickey," Rose cut him off with a shake of her head, "I've got t'try. If I don't...I dunno how much time we've got, but I know it isn't much."

That time, she told him she loved him first before she kissed him on the cheek and left.

Rose went to the mansion next, snuck into Tony's room and held him to her chest as she paced before the large window as she had done so many nights before. She kissed his forehead before reaching out to lay a finger atop the tiny Tardis she had made him for his first birthday.

"M'so glad I got to meet you," she said sadly into his hair.

"Wose? S'cawtoon time?" he said with so much sleep that his sister almost couldn't make out the word.

Smiling down at him, Rose replied, "no love. This is just me...sayin' goodbye."

He was silent for so long Rose thought he had fallen asleep before Tony spoke again. "We c'n watch tomowow?"

She held him tighter to her chest as her heart started to ache, tears threatening to come. "No...Tony, I'm not gonna come around no more, ya understand love?" From the way he rubbed at his face, his eyes still closed, Rose knew he was only cognisant of what she was saying. She wondered if he would remember in the morning.

"But...I like you," Tony mumbled.

Rose smiled. "I love you, Crispy Ant" she whispered, a single tear slipping down her cheek.

In the shadows that lined the memory, the Doctor sniffed and looked aside to hide the wetness in his own eyes, unsure if the pain he felt was solely from Rose's memory.

Coming down the stairs, Rose was only half surprised to see lights on and Jackie sitting in a chair by the door. She came to a stand still a metre from the door and looked at her mother resignedly. Jackie gave her much the same look.

"It was never a competition, sweetheart," Jackie said softly, "'tween you an' Pete or Tony."

Rose smiled sadly. "I never thought it was, Mum," she said as she knelt before her mother, brushed away a tear from the older woman's face. "M'happy you've got them, really I am."

"Don't go," Jackie whispered and Rose wrapped her in a hug, kissed her temple.

"If I don't...If I don't at least try...Mum, I'll lose you an' Tony anyway," Rose said, frowning in anguish at the thought. "Better t'risk myself than that."

Rose hugged her mother longest of anyone, just in case. She had left Jackie without saying goodbye so many times, never thinking each time could've easily been her last. Knowing there was a good chance this really was the last time, Rose didn't want to risk wasting it.

It was one of those rare moments when Jackie Tyler was speechless, clutching at her only daughter. "I love you so much, mum," Rose said strongly, knowing that she wouldn't be half the person she was were it not for the fact that she was her mother's daughter.

-#-

"Bad Wolf, how do we know that this works?" Wolfram asked quietly at Rose's side.

"We don't, Trent," she said softly back to him before a blinding light blinked them out from existence and they were thrown across dimensions to another world.

The Torchwood team was pitched to their knees but quickly righted themselves, looked around at the London evening as their breath fogged.

"We're in London," Wolfram said as Rose looked at her comm. She had been tinkering on it to add a few special features and the clock now read December 25, 2007. Puffing out a deep breath, she only hoped it was her Tardis tracker that had brought them to that time and place and not some hickup of the dimension canon. The Time Lord biorythm tracker that should have signalled on her comm had he been near did not, though, and Rose wasn't buoyed much by that.

"Get the gear to some cover, wait for my orders," Rose said as she walked to the river, hoping for a better view of any trouble, any sign that the Doctor was nearby.

Her eyes went wide as she approached the Thames and saw that it was empty. An impossible giddiness stole over her and she started to laugh. She looked left, then right along the river banks, shrugged and started to run left.

The Doctor pelted after her despite the fact that this was a memory and he would follow effortlessly if he stayed still. He couldn't help it, Rose's glee was infectious and it had been brought on by one single thought. His face. Not the Northern Doctor, the sole incarnation of his she had given any thought to since being trapped in the parallel world, no, _his_ face.

A gaggle of people, flashing lights and yellow tape drew Rose like a moth to a flame and she ran up just as an ambulance departed.

Watching Rose's conversation with Donna. The Doctor's smile faded exactly as Rose's did in the memory. He turned slowly to face the Rose whose memory this was, who stood a good distance from him and the scene before them, and the look she gave him chilled him to the bone.

In the memory, Rose blended into the crowd to escape Donna and broke into a run as soon as she thought she could without drawing too much attention.

Panic coursed through her veins as she ran back into the heart of the city. Ten minutes later, shaking and out of breath, she stopped against a brick wall in a park and laid her hands and forehead against it. Decided, she stood, pulled the hem of her blue jacket down and walked to the nearest car. She hot-wired it and drove to Canary Wharf, sat in the car looking at the building that should have housed Torchwood but that clearly didn't, not in that universe, not anymore. Agitated, she drove to where UNIT headquarters would've been in the universe she had travelled from and thanked Space when she saw the grounds were guarded by UNIT personnel. Rose shook her head when she found the poorly lit spot along their fence and climbed it with ease, hacking through the barbed wire with the multi tool she kept on her belt. After that, she just walked around like it was Torchwood and no one questioned her, not until she came to the bottom floor, where she thought the morgue would be.

"ID ma'am," one of the guards asked as she tried to enter.

Rose didn't flinch, just let loose a tirade of 'didn't they know who she was's and 'get me your bloody superior's until the guard left to do just that. She smiled wanly at his compatriot. "Sorry mate," drew her blaster and shot him in a second. Dragging him into the morgue, Rose locked the doors and turned, her eyes falling on the gurney, the only one occupied in the open space.

Hesitating longer than she wanted to, Rose finally stepped to the side of it and pulled the sheet back in a quick motion.

Watching her, feeling what she had felt then, the Doctor felt like he'd been punched and Rose stood as far as she could from the gurney, her back against the morgue wall, hating reliving this. Hating what was coming. "I say some things," she whispered to the Doctor, "please don't...take 'em t'heart."

And with that the Rose in the memory started shouting at the body, pounding her fists on his chest, the brown fabric of the suit wet and unnatural beneath her hands. "You selfish piece of garbage! They needed ya! I NEED YA! I came so far for ya and ya could't even...you bastard!" Rose wasn't crying, she was furious. She gripped the fabric of his lapels and shook him on the gurney, "I hate ya, I hate ya, I-"

The Doctor was grateful when Rose's palms landed open on the chest of his dead body and the memory abruptly changed. They were watching her look about a vast darkness throughout which was strung an infinite number of violently orange strings, like yarn, billions of them. The Rose in the memory had seen this before, inside the Doctor's head and realisation dawned on her as the periphery of her vision glowed golden.

"Bad Wolf," the Doctor whispered.

Heart hammering, Rose was none the less calmed by the Bad Wolf and the time stream coursing through here. Much as the Time Lord was dear to these things, they were capable of appreciating the bigger picture in a way most mortals were not. She focused, saw two orange strings on either side of her, as thick around as telephone poles, running perfectly parallel. Looking behind then ahead, Rose frowned at them. The rest of the strings were chaotic in relation to one another, wiggling like snakes at some points, straight as arrows at others, fixed points in time.

"S'wrong," Rose whispered as she brought a hand to each of the strings on either side of her. In a flash, Rose saw a chaotic jumble of images of a Sontaran ship, one with the Doctor aboard, one with Jack Harkness, the earth covered in smoke then a blaze of fire throughout the heavens.

Withdrawing her hands, the images stopped and she stood frowning in the black a moment before she raised her hands, made fists and brought them to her chest. The strings moved a few meters and once more she brought her hands to them.

A hospital, strange rhinoceros aliens she had never seen before, one time line with the Doctor and an MRI machine, one with Sarah Jane. Again she withdrew, moved the strings along, placed her hands on them, the Bad Wolf feeling closer to the important point in the parallel time streams.

Water was rushing into the vast underground space and Rose watched as two Doctors stood as though kaleidoscopic images, their faces terrible in their age and pitilessness. But in one, the woman she had met at the river side, the one who had told her the Doctor was dead, called for him to stop. In the other, he was alone. Rose's hand dropped from one of the strings and the image of the lone Doctor was suddenly all there was. Rose in the memory stood in front of the Doctor and Rose who observed her and all three watched as the rising water slowly covered the man on the stairs. They watched his eyes close, his face tired and resolute. A shot of golden light pulsed through him but faded quickly and he was left floating, the shell of the being Rose Tyler had loved with everything she was.

The memory slowed and the Doctor turned to see Rose regarding him stonily, arms crossed over her chest. His words whispered across her psyche and he heard them through their bond.

 _You wither and you die. Imagine watching that happen to someone that you..._

Thoughts of a Time Lord binding with Rose had always made him afraid, that it would harm her, that she would hate him for the things he had done. It had never occurred to him that he would find that hate already sprung and fully formed.

Somehow saying sorry felt far from adequate and he understood that Rose saw the distinction between the altered time line and the true time line, that the him that truly was had never made that decision. But she had watched him die, take his own life, would never be rid of that memory.

"S'not just that," she whispered, eyes dark as he looked at her with regret for a thing he hadn't done. "Tell me ya didn't do it because you'd just lost me."

Opening his mouth to say just that, the Doctor suddenly remembered exactly how he had felt, standing on those stairs, watching the Racnoss drown. That he had tried to have pity on even them, the most brutal predators of the galaxy. Why hadn't the universe taken pity on him and Rose, why wasn't she there with him?

He shut his mouth as Rose looked stricken, her jaw clenched. Through their bond, she felt the hopelessness he had known in that moment and knew the part she had played in it.

"Can you blame me?" he asked finally, quietly, looking simply sad.

Rose's eyes fired at that. "900 years of Time and space and you throw it away on a woman? An earth girl-" she started to rage before he snapped back, the oncoming storm building in him as he went.

"900 years of time and space and yes!" he yelled back, "I was tired of always doing the right thing and still losing." Snarling, he continued, "You may have been just an earth girl, but with you, for the first time in decades, I didn't remember everyday that they were gone, that Gallifrey was gone! In that moment you were _everything_!" he screamed, quivering, his eyes wild with remembered grief.

"And I would've done it," he said, voice suddenly small as he looked over his shoulder at his drifting body, then back at Rose. "I would have done it."

The look in Rose's eyes, the feelings that washed off of her and into him told the Doctor that that knowledge pained her more than any glimpse of the Time War ever could. Her loss had been the last straw for him.

"Do you want to stop?" he muttered flatly, his face drawn in expectation of the worst.

"What?" Rose asked, narrowing her eyes at him in confusion.

"The binding, do you-"

"No," she hastily cut him off. "We don't run from this, Doctor, not anymore." She finished more gently than she had started, walked to him and took his hand. As she looked into the fathomless depths of his eyes, she appreciated that he still had years on her, had known grief the scope of which she would never comprehend, even holding his memories as she now did.

"Why didn't you?" he asked, then looked at his feet when he realized how arrogant the question sounded.

Rose squeezed his hand. "I don't think I've ever been as lonely as you, not in my whole life." It was true. She had always had her mother, her friends and compared to the Doctor's relationship with his mother, that alone made their childhoods vastly different. He had been a lonely child, too smart and too odd to make friends easily. His best mate had gone mad upon looking into the untempered schism. Where once they had been the closest of friends, the Doctor's brother had felt disdain at the Doctor's inability to stand and face the schism. Then he had ran from Gallifrey after the untimely death of his father and he hadn't stopped since.

Another squeeze of his hand brought the Doctor's attention back to Rose and she asked, "you ready t'go on?"

He swallowed and nodded. "Do I do anything else in this altered time line I should know about?"

Rose smirked wryly at him. "Nah, just get yourself shot by a bloody Dalek once I fix everything."

"Right," the Doctor nodded, his usual, innocuous expression returning, "I was there for that."

The memory sped up just as Rose was ripped from the vision of the time stream. UNIT personnel had managed to get a cuff on her and haul her to the ground. Spinning, she kneed the soldier who had the cuffs in the head, rolled and kicked out the knee of the soldier who stood beside them. A boot to the head of that soldier knocked them likewise out and Rose was on her feet to go after the skirted woman who was quickly backing out the morgue doors. Rose snapped the pistol the woman had drawn from her hands and turned it around on her, noting the stripes on the woman's shoulder.

Breathing heavily, Rose quickly relaxed from her shooting stance and offered the gun back to its owner by the barrel, extending the grip. "Captain," Rose said, "I need your help."

-#-

The hanger was empty save for the Tardis and Rose had to fight down the urge to run to it, her heart bursting at the sight of it.

"We can't get in-" Magambo was saying but Rose wasn't listening as she reached for the chain around her neck and stepped to the doors. She slipped inside, shut the world out and stared for several long minutes at the blue light of the rotor.

"Hello," she whispered, felt the hum of the Tardis in the back of her mind, smiled broadly at it.

"You thought it would be easy," the Doctor said as Rose ran to the console and began plugging away.

At his side, Rose heaved a heavy sigh. "I almost gave up that day. You were gone, she was uncooperative," she said as her counterpart slammed an angry fist down on the console.

"COME ON!" Rose roared, staring at the motionless time rotor, hearing for the first time the mournful tone in the Tardis' song. "He's not really gone, I promise! We can get him back if ya just-" and she thumped the console again before leaning heavily on it, her blonde hair obscuring her face.

 _This is Emergency Programme One. Rose, now listen. This is important. If this message is activated..._

Rose's head snapped up, just seeing the back of the image beyond the time rotor.

 _...and I mean fatal. I'm dead, or about to die any second with no chance of escape. And that's okay. Hope it's a good death..._

She stepped around the console to stand before it, regarding the Northern Doctor with a blank expression.

"Why him?" Rose asked, looking aside at the Doctor as he watched the memory. When he frowned at her, Rose clarified, "I mean, why wasn't it you?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Meant what I said about not leaving you, that night with Sarah Jane. Never reprogrammed it, the image shouldn't even have come up. I think this was just her." The Doctor gestured to the ship around them. "Trying to tell you she was done if I was."

Within the memory, Rose sagged to the floor against the Tardis doors, her heart too raw to do anything with this latest assault. When the Northern Doctor knelt before her, _do that for me, Rose, have a fantastic life_ , she reached up to touch his face, her fingers going through the blue image before it faded.

-#-

Rose stepped from the Tardis to find her team waiting at attention for her, plucked from the streets by Magambo.

"Did you find him?" Wolfram asked, barely keeping from calling her Bad Wolf as she had instructed for the mission. No names, give as little information as possible.

Regarding him for a minute, half her mind elsewhere, Rose eventually said, "no, not for our purposes anyway." Wolfram raised a brow at that but said nothing.

"Captain, I need ya to find two people for me. Jack Harkness and Sarah Jane Smith. Jack might be affiliated with Torchwood here," Rose supplied, remembering vague details from the time streams.

"There is no Torchwood anymore-" Magambo began to argue but Rose shook her head.

"Just find him." Turning to her team, Rose instructed them to return to their arrival site. She then listed off a third of the science division by name into her comm and ordered them into the dimension canon.

Rose crossed her arms across her chest as she looked back at the Tardis, whispering mentally to it that she was sorry for what she was about to do.

"And me?" Sandra asked, coming to stand next to Rose.

Rose didn't look aside to her. "Sit tight. We'll need ya soon enough," she replied with certitude.

-#-

Rose's comm read three am as she walked into a small briefing room to find Jack and Sarah Jane waiting for her. Laying eyes on Jack, seeing the recognition in his, jostled Rose's already raw emotions. She threw herself into his arms and they hugged for a long while, Jack laughing heartily in her ear in a way that took her back years.

Finally pulling back, Rose kissed him and the look in her eyes as she did so made doubt flit across Jack's face. More sombre, he refrained from asking her what was wrong until after Rose had hugged Sarah Jane.

"You've grown some," Sarah Jane was the first to speak, knowingly eyeing Rose.

Rose didn't respond to that, instead she began, "I need ya to listen 'cause I need your help, I need ya to buy me time."

News of the Doctor's death shocked them but Rose rolled past it without stopping. When she had gotten to the part about the time stream, Jack held up a hand.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. We can't know about that, that's our future-"

"No, it's not, not if I can help it," Rose bowled over him, "the only way you two could possibly know t'be where ya are when ya are is me an' I'm tellin' ya now. The only reason I would do that is if those events happenin' without intervention would stop me from fixin' this mess." She slid pieces of paper across to them both.

"I don't have time for any more detail an' if I pull this off, neither a' ya'll remember it anyway."

Rose stood, pushed her chair back and was halfway out the door before Jack spun her into another hug. She gripped at his familiar wool jacket desperately for a moment, breathed in the scent of him. "God, I missed you so much," she whispered fiercely into his ear.

"Rose, what hap-" Jack tried but she tore herself from him and was out the door before he could finish.

-#-

They were delayed another month by the necessity of rigging up the Tardis to power time travel outside of itself. Rose charged Wolfram and another Torchwood private from the team with keeping everyone except her out of the Tardis. Her excuse was that it was Time Travel they were dealing with and fucking around with it could wipe them out before they'd accomplished their objective. The reality was that she wanted to spare the Tardis, which she came to suspect was dying, from anyone else.

It was also within the Tardis that Rose snatched short stretches of sleep in the small hours of the morning when the hanger was deserted. The first room the Tardis indicated with a glow of light from under the door was not her old room, nor the Doctor's. Within it was a simple bunk of the kind in the barracks at Eastbourne, a shower and toilet adjoining.

She thanked the ship that first night, slept in her clothes and started awake less than two hours later, calling out for the Doctor.

As they readied the final bits and pieces of code for the external time machine, news came down that the Royal Hope hospital had disappeared. Rose worked a little faster when she heard, sweating cold.

"Are you sure you won't let us come with you?" Wolfram asked from outside the circle of the machine, staring at Rose as she checked her comm within. She had had to tether the destination to the Doctor's biorhythm as the Tardis wouldn't fix on itself in other time points. Even then, she wasn't sure any of it would work.

Looking up at Wolfram, Rose smiled in her eyes but kept her face more or less neutral. "Scary enough havin' me scramblin' time, Wolfram, and I've done it before. Nah, s'gotta just be me." She knew her team was frightened of her leaving them so she straightened her back, looked confident as one of the Tech workers counted her down.

"The hospital is back," a UNIT worker called from the hanger doors to Magambo, "heavy casualties."

Rose stopped the countdown. "Do ya know if Sarah Jane Smith was among 'em?" The UNIT worker consulted a list a moment before looking back to Rose and nodding. Rose stared at him a second, the weight of Sarah Jane's death settling on her like a stone, before she slung her rifle over her shoulder. "Count me down!"

-#-

The temporal shift sent her to knees hard in an instant and she heaved, ridding her stomach of the breakfast she had been careful to eat, unsure of when she'd have her next meal.

"Rough without the capsule," the Doctor commented softly, watching Rose wipe at her lips with a shaking hand.

"Bit rough, yeah," Rose agreed.

A quick scan around the grimy ally told Rose it was deserted and she slipped her rifle off from around her, propped it against a wall as she stood tentatively. She looked down at her comm, at the signal that ought to have indicated the Doctor was nearby. Nothing.

Rose sighed, pushed off from the wall and once she did so, stepped into the proper downpour. She was soaked in a second. "Base, we're a no signal, spool me up and get me home."

" **Copy. We'll need a few hours, though** ," came the slightly nervous reply.

"I know," was all Rose said in return.

The ally appeared deserted until, with a bang, stall awnings opened on either side of her, people began yelling and peddling their wares.

"Ya want some happy, love? I've got happy for ya!"

"You, my dear, you need some stress relief, look at ya, poor thing. Tranquility, that's what ya need!"

Rose had immediately ducked at the sound, her hand going to her blaster under her jacket. From her crouch she looked at the shop keeps looking at her and cocked a brow. She stood, blew out a too long held breath and asked, "Where is this?"

Before she could be answered, someone had put a gun to her head and wrapped their hand around her shoulders, started dragging her back. Rose instinctively kicked her head back and met her attackers nose sharply. They groaned as she spun from their grip, her blaster in her hand and levelled at them.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! It's a fake gun, it's a fake gun!" the accomplice, a young man with short cropped hair, quickly said, his hands raised.

"Yeah? Well this one ain't," Rose replied, priming her gun. She recognized fairly quickly that whoever they were, they weren't a threat, in fact, they were terrified. Internally, Rose sighed. If she had been with the Doctor, she would've asked what was wrong, tried to help.

"Get out'a here," she said lowly and her would be attackers dashed away from her.

Turning, Rose saw that the stalls had closed, their owners no longer interested in her business. Rose holstered her blaster, retrieved her rifle and started trying to find higher ground.

It took about an hour, an hour of breaking into buildings, climbing fire escapes, drain pipes and hopping between buildings spaced too closely together. She finally made it to a roof. Climbing up, Rose looked at the massive city before her and frowned at it's familiarity. When she inhaled, a scent tickled her nose and she turned on the spot, scanning the buildings around her. Through a space between the massive towers, she caught sight of a verdant green slope in the far distance, over an expanse of water, and she smiled at the pain.

"New New York," she whispered, identifying the smell as apple grass.

A vision of a shaggy haired Doctor came to her. New New Doctor.

Sitting against the brick half wall that ran about the top of the building, Rose brought her knees to her chest and was shivering within ten minutes, though the rain had let up some time ago. An hour later, she was ripped back to February, 2008.

-#-

Rose was only half dry by the time she next stood at the centre the external time machine, her teams initial relief that she had returned evaporated.

"Good luck," one of the science workers called, and Rose was gone.

That time, Rose managed not to wretch but the shift had still brought her too her knees, momentarily defenseless as she tried to stop her head from swimming. She realized that the smell wasn't helping. Cracking an eye, she looked up at the horse that stood next to her, it's head an inch from her own.

"Hi," she said. The horse snorted and nosed in the hay at Rose's knees.

Rose stepped from the barn and into the dark of London. The accents gave away the location, the clothing and speech the date. Old London. She looked down at her comm and frowned. No signal.

About to raise the comm to her lips to call for transport back, Rose was distracted by the brilliant violet light that erupted from one of the buildings nearby. She frowned at it, her mind doing quick time math. Any events that happened before the present time she was working with in the altered time stream could affect her ability to get back.

This time Rose did sigh outright and started running. Throngs of people crushed at her from all sides as she neared the building, panicking. Elbows out, she made her way inside and frowned up at the creatures flying about, still being jostled by the crowd. When she saw one of them fly at the people trapped in the balcony, Rose raised her rifle and shot it down.

She realized her mistake too late as the creatures, spilling forth from a portal in the centre of the theatre, were drawn to her. Firing unabated for five minutes, Rose eventually started to withdraw, her mind drawing connections. The building was strangely shaped, she had noted it from afar and upon entering had saw that it was not round but actually had sides, 14 of them.

Her Torchwood training had had her assessing her surroundings, it was the Doctor's mind that whispered in her own that shapes and words had power.

Finding the nearest fire, in a set of stables close to the theatre, Rose took several torches from it and ran back to the theatre. She didn't hesitate to set fire to it despite the screams she still heard from within. Making sure the blaze would hold first, Rose delved back in to the now empty entrance. A quick scan told her it was the people on the balcony who remained. Shooting more of the creatures down, Rose made her way around the theatre, searching for stairs. The creatures blocked her progress, pinned her down for several minutes in which the fire spread and smoke began to fill the rafters of the theatre.

A boot to one of her attackers and Rose managed to break free and run up the stairs, coughing as she entered the cloud of smoke. She was directing the twenty or so people on the balcony down when one of the creatures managed to just grab at the collar of her coat. A panicking spectator bumped her at the front and Rose went backwards over the balcony.

The snot and air left her lungs when she hit and, watching herself in the memory, Rose was amazed she hadn't been knocked out. A creature was on her and she struggled with it, her rifle between them. Over it's shoulder, she saw the roof glowing red behind the veil of smoke. Feinting to bring the rifle to her chest, Rose head butted the creature and rolled. Scrambling to her feet, Rose ran for the door, fell under the weight of a burning chunk of the roof timbers. Another roll to keep the flames from catching and she just managed to get outside before the roof collapsed in a shower of sparks and smoke, taking down the north wall with it.

"Wolfram, bring me back," Rose said flatly into her comm.

-#-

A grey day was dawning, bringing a sheet of rain with it. Rose sat against the now deserted barn across from the smoking hulk of the burned out theatre, raising her pistol on occasion to pick off the odd stray alien creature that escaped.

"Sandra," she said softly.

" **Yes?** " The reply sans Rose's code name, slightly apprehensive.

"I'll need a medic when I get there."

" **Can you describe your injuries?** "

Rose did so briefly, guessing at the causes of some of the pain she felt. Then she leaned back, the rain soothing her burns, leaving her soul rawer than ever.

Rose hissed when the shift happened and she was left sitting on her arse in the middle of the hanger. Her team rushed to her side, Sandra at the head, Wolfram not far behind, and the Rose that remembered smiled to see them do so.

The Rose that lived it barked, "M'fine!" tt the personnel and turned to Sandra, asking for a hand up, stubbornly refusing a stretcher.

"She looks like hell," Rose heard one of her personnel say forlornly as she limped from the hanger.

Another hiss as her clothing was removed with shears, pieces of her jacket left where they had fused to her flesh. "No," Rose said to Sandra as she approached her with a needle, "local only. M'not going under. I've got things to do."

Sandra cocked an unamused brow at her. "You have second degree burns, broken ribs and god knows what else the xray'll tell us-"

"Yeah, an' they hurt like hell, can ya shift?" Rose cut her off.

She shook on occasion, when she couldn't hide the fact that something hurt so badly she wanted to scream but wouldn't. Breaths came in fits and starts, her hands wrung the railings on the bed.

Her physical pain alone made a tear slide down the Doctor's cheek; he could count on one hand the number of times he had hurt that badly. A second tear mirrored the first on his other cheek as he watched her, alone for all intents and purposes, being sown back together because he hadn't been there.

More interested in the Doctor than her memory, Rose watched him a moment before turning his face away from the memory. He tried to protest, but she shushed him, hugged him to her, stroked the hair at the base of his neck. Out of the corner of his eyes he could still see her form on the medic table tense from the pain periodically.

An unimpressed look from Sandra burning into her back, Rose limped from the medbay, past the hanger, down to the morgue. It was much fuller than last time, she was sad to see, and she walked among the opaque body bags solemnly. A tag bearing Sarah Jane's name finally stood out and Rose unzipped it, squeezed the older woman's shoulder.

A moment later, Rose frowned and looked around her. The frown sharpened to a look of contained fury and she stormed from the morgue, her limp barely perceptible.

"Magambo!" Rose hollered, striding into the hanger, looking about until she locked eyes with the captain at the far end. The room fell silent at the sight of her. "Where's the body?" she snarled.

"We've taken it for dissec-"

" _DO NOT_ finish that sentence," Rose stormed, the UNIT personnel about Magambo actually stepping back from the two of them. "Find him, bring 'im to the morgue." Her orders were sharp, her eyes bright from a fury she felt more keenly than the pain in her leg where her jeans rubbed at the fresh burn.

Looking like she might protest for a minute, Magambo seemed to think better of it and simply left the hanger. Rose stood, breathing hard for a second before walking to the Tardis, and looking in through the cracked doors at the glowing time rotor within. Wolfram eyed her from his post but said nothing. She turned and left the hanger, oblivious to the silence she left in her wake or the stares that followed her.

Rose wheeled the two stretchers into the room adjoining the morgue, empty save for an office chair and the large bricked structure in the middle of it. It took her only a second to discern how the thing might work and she pushed a green button, turned a dial. The flames sounded like a low rolling thunder.

His shoulders were bare and Rose's eyes were drawn from his collar bone, down the length of him to the red that bled through the white sheet covering him. Her fingers brushed the sheet near it before tracing their way back up, resting on his chest as she leant down and laid her lips against his. Though he had always felt cool to the touch, to the point where Rose would insist on a blanket between them in their nights aboard the Tardis, his lips were icy, more alien than usual.

Not quite able to look at his stilled face, once so animated, she kept her eyes closed and whispered to him. "S'ok...Sarah Jane is here...ya won't be alone." The lump in her throat was more distracting than the pain in her body.

Eventually, she stood, opened the heavy cast iron door and frowned at the heat from the fire within. Then she used that fire to unmake the last of what remained of two of the most amazing people she had ever known.

She sat in the office chair and looked at the blemishes in the bricks of the furnace, thinking of all the words for 'sad' that she now knew, in thousands of different languages. In Moital, the word for 'life' was identical to that for 'sad' and only by the addition of an accent when written or the context in which it was used could one distinguish between the two. Sometimes context wasn't enough and the exact meaning was lost in the Moiterian texts within which their oral traditions survived.

It was a very Doctor thought, and Rose winced at it.

A voice clearing from the doorway stole Rose's attention and she looked up to find Wolfram staring at the floor. "Forgive me, but I thought you might like some company," he said softly.

"I might, yeah," Rose said after a minute's contemplation, a sad smile flitting across her face.

"Someone on watch?" Rose asked, meaning the Tardis.

"I had the techs unhook the couplings for the night, closed it up. Suspected you wouldn't be going anywhere tonight."

She didn't answer and from his vantage point standing at her side, Wolfram was convinced she looked as melancholy as he had ever seen her.

"What did you do out there?" he asked, drawing her attention away from the dead to the mission.

Leaning with her elbows on her knees, Rose turned her wrist to look at her comm, pressed a button on it. "I think I burned down the Globe Theatre in 1599."

Wolfram frowned at her and Rose started to laugh, too exhausted not to and he eventually, in a mutually out of character display, joined her.

"Don't tell me you barbecued the bard?" Wolfram chortled after a minute and Rose sighed in her laughter.

"No..." another sigh, the momentary brightness gone from her face. "I think I killed about 20 people. Burned them alive." Growing solemn in kind, Wolfram waited. "If I pull this off, it'll be like it never happened...an' I don't find that comforting much." Rose hugged herself, felt the overwhelming weight of the deaths she had caused that night.

"My friend,"Rose said quietly in the hopes the shakiness of her voice wouldn't be heard that way, nodded at the furnace, "he used to love the days when everybody lived...they were his favourites." She trembled, only just managed to keep tears from her eyes as she remembered how few and far between those days had been with the Doctor.

"Cremation takes hours...if you wanted some rest, I could stay with them," Wolfram offered.

Rose just shook her head and Wolfram stayed by her side silently another seven hours.

"Have I mentioned lately how much I love that man?" the Doctor said of Wolfram, his voice thick with tired and heart ache. Rose just smirked at the thought of Wolfram hearing as much, though silently she agreed with the Doctor.


	14. Who You Were, What We Are

Here it is folks, the last chapter. Thank you for the reviews. I've got a whopper of an adventure almost completed featuring the Doc and Rose as characterised in this story and hope you'll come back for more!

-#-

The time machine tethered to the Doctors biorhythm once more, Rose stood within it after more hours of sleep than she had had in the last week combined. She hadn't started awake in the Tardis, her body too damaged, her mind and heart needing rest. No one had said a word when she emerged from the blue box later than usual.

"Ready?"

"Count me down," Rose confirmed, the butt of her rifle next to her right foot, the barrel in her hand.

The shift toppled her onto the grating at her feet, her leg still aching from the burn, making her unsteady. Righting herself readily enough, Rose looked around the corridor, the sound of engines telling her it was a ship, the volume that it was small.

Absentmindedly, she looked at her comm as she moved down the corridor and stopped dead. The Time Lord biorhythm signal blipped innocuously and time slowed for Rose. He was near.

Rose slung the rifle strap over her shoulder and took out her pistol instead, set it to stun.

The first door she came to clunked mechanically open as she approached and Rose stunned the two aliens within. A quick scan told her nothing in the room would be useful in locating the Doctor and she departed. The process was repeated six more times, a pile of stunned humanoids left in Rose's wake.

"You didn't even try to talk to them," the Doctor observed critically, turning a scathing glare on Rose.

She was unphased. "Couldn't take the chance, needed to find you." She looked at him with resignation, "besides, I get my comeuppance."

He frowned at her as, in the memory, Rose entered an empty room, clearly an observation deck, and stood captivated by the brilliant swirl of vibrant colours in the heart of space. Squinting suddenly, Rose ran to the glass and pressed her face against it before looking at her wrist, switching the comm to tell her the date.  
A sad half laugh, half pained groan escaped her lips. The date was burned into her memory, the day she had stood on a beach, told the Doctor she loved him and watched him disappear before he could say anything of substance. She looked back up at the speck of blue floating next to the super nova and put her hand on the glass.

"Doctor..."

After a moment's sad reflection, Rose ran to the terminal on the far wall and began tearing it apart, trying to find a way to get a message to him. So focused was she that the butt of the rifle caught her unawares and she crumled to the ground in its wake.

"Oh...no," the Doctor grimaced.

"Yeah," Rose confirmed, hardened beyond the pain she knew was coming in the memory.

"Did you know who they were when you...?" he asked, looking aside at her.

"Yeah," she shrugged, "you know, vaguely from your memories. Not like they ever captured you, was it? Just had stories you'd heard."

Discomfited, the Doctor looked back to the memory as Rose awoke, strapped to a chair with all manner of instruments suspended above it. He had often wondered where the multitude of small cuts that littered Rose's body had come from. It was a good bet that most of them were the result of the events playing out in the memory.

"How did you get on board?" the humanoid asked in Lychandrian.

Moving her stiff and sore Jaw, Rose eyed the instruments that dangled just above her head before returning to her questioner. "Temporal shift from the near future, 'bout a few days out." The Lychandrins were known for perfecting what they saw as the art and science of torture. She didn't see any reason to lie to them.

The Lychandrin's hairless brow raised at her. "Temporal shift?"

Rose nodded matter of factly. "Time travel, yeah."

Sighing heavily, the humanoid stepped a few paces from her and pressed a button on a long panel that also hung from the ceiling. Six claw-like implements shot into Rose's chest and she let out a short sharp scream, surprised initially, slowly becoming aware of the pain flooding her torso.

"I had hoped our reputation would precede us and you would spare us any...fanciful tales," the Lychandrin said solemnly. "But if you will not, we will treat you to the height of our expertise."

"No," Rose said forcefully, "I'm tellin' ya the truth-"

"Time travel is the domain of the Time Lords and Daleks, both extinct. You lie," the Lychandrin said flatly, flicking a switch and sending 40, 000 volts through the spikes in Rose's chest. Every muscle in her body seized and the Doctor swallowed as he felt the sensation, or lack thereof, of her heart stopping momentarily. It was brief but Rose was still left shaking in the aftermath.

When her torturer turned away from her to inspect more tools at the side of the room, Rose fidgeted with her wrist until she had pressed down the two buttons that in conjuncture held the comm line open from her end. "I need a shift," she said quickly in English, "I need it fast. Don't respond, the comm's locked...and don't listen anymore after this." Swallowing, Rose knew her last order would likely be ignored by silent agreement amongst the personnel. As a hot liquid seeped through the probes in her chest, burning as it went, Rose could only hope Wolfram would shut the audio down when she started to scream.

-#-

The shift always took time. It was a massive power drain, coordinates had to be input, calibrated, checked and double checked. After being awoken from a shock induced sleep for the second time, Rose saw that her torturer had moved in with a long curving blade and was eyeing her ear with detached fascination.

"You're very good at this," she said, drawing his attention. He looked at her queerly and Rose eventually decided it was a smile.

"Thank you," he replied, looking her over again. "Where are you from?"

"Earth," Rose said blandly.

The Lychandrian's eyes grew a little wider. "Human?"

"Yeah."

"Hmm, I suppose earth is quite close...I've never worked on a human before."

"Really?" Rose said with polite interest.

"Mmm, I regret that we do not have someone more versed in psychological torture on board. You would have made a fascinating study," he said regretfully.

"Not really," Rose said, noting for the first time how hard it was to breath with the spikes in her chest. "Don't think there's much t'be done t'me psychologically right now that isn't already happenin'." She hung her head with a sad smile as she thought about the Tardis hovering out by the super nova, the closest she had been to the living Doctor in two years. Swallowing, she turned that resigned smile back on her torturer. "Go on then," she said quietly, "was never that fond of that ear anyway."

Dipping his head in acquiescence, the Lychandrian was about to take hold of the shell of her ear when Rose blinked from existence. She had no memory of arriving in the hanger.

-#-

Despite more sedatives coursing through her system than would be required to still a horse, Rose started awake only a few hours after Sandra and the med team had finished with her. She flung herself from the bed and crashed to the floor as her legs, unsteady from too much pain and too many drugs, failed her. Rose just managed to catch herself on the bed and clung to the side of it, her face a snarl as she tried to right herself. Sandra and another medic were on her in an instant, trying to get her back to bed.

"No!" Rose protested loudly, "I was so close, I've gotta get back!"

Swatting her would be helpers away, Rose finally stood with her arms supporting her, her eyes alight. "Get me some bloody clothes."

Wincing occasionally from her burns and the new additions to her catalogue of injuries, Rose moved around the hanger as if possessed. She tried to recreate exactly the conditions and codes that had led her to be transported aboard the Lychandrian ship next to the super nova. The only unknown variable was the Tardis which made the ultimate decision of where the shift came out and Rose was gaining a new appreciation for just how good the Doctor had been at flying it.

"You're trying to go back," Wolfram stated, standing next to where she lay under a section of the time machine.

"Yeah," Rose called up distractedly, eyeing a panel readout with fluctuating numbers.

"Back to where they did what they did to you," Wolfram pressed but this Rose did not answer, being too absorbed in doing exactly that. Huffing out an impatient breath, Wolfram knelt and whispered sharply at Rose, "we listened to you screaming the entire time this bloody thing was spooling up-"

"And I bloody well told you not to," Rose hissed back at him before returning to what she was doing.

"You were a god damned mess when you landed back...what if you die this time?"

Rose didn't look aside at him again. "Ya have your orders in case I don't come back," she stated much more calmly, knowing he couldn't argue with that. He stayed crouched looking at her for a long time and Rose knew he wanted to say something, also knew that he wouldn't. He left and she finished her work.

-#-

Stabbing her thigh with a shot of epinephrine, Rose marched into the centre of the time machine and stood with a new rifle at her hip. She nodded at her techs, avoided Wolfram's gaze and was blinked from the hanger.

It felt wrong the second she landed. The air, the smell of it, the sounds, the quality of the light. She was outside, not on a ship, and Rose gritted her teeth at the realisation. Looking around, she knew it was a city, a human city judging from the familiar detritus that lined the ally she had found herself in. Subconsciously she had avoided looking at her comm until last, a sinking feeling in her stomach that it would tell her what she didn't want to know.

Instead, it told her what she didn't completely understand. The Time Lord biorhythm signal wasn't flashing as it would have for the Doctor, it lit in a different pattern and Rose frowned at it. Unequivocally, it indicated that he was not near. Exactly what it _was_ signalling was near, Rose had no idea.

Switching the comm to read the date, Rose saw that it was November 12, 1930 and hesitated. Earlier in the time stream. If something was going wrong, something the Doctor had fixed in the proper time stream, she would need to sort it or risk it wiping the future out.

Her disappointment blunting the effect of the adrenaline, Rose meandered the city, figuring out in short order that it was New York from the accents alone. Dusk was settling as she made her way into central park, having kept to the shadows with her rather big gun to avoid attention, it seemed like a good place to lay low and gather information. The park was teeming with life, a tent city that Rose hadn't expected.

The tent city's occupants eyed her warily as she stepped up to the heat of their fire and held her hands out. Across from her, a man looked her over quickly before smiling.

"Know a soldier when I see one," he said, stepping around the barrel that housed the flames and offering his hand. "Names Soloman. Corporal, Eighth Infantry."

Rose shook his hand, gave him a small smile in return. "Sergeant Smith, Rifles," she lied easily, taking the Doctor's alias and the regiment that Wolfram had come up through in the regular army.

"Ah, British," the other man said with raised brows, "explains some things."

Rose almost smirked. "Yeah, we're...forward thinkin' on the island."

Looking at the rifle slung across Rose's back, Soloman nodded to it. "War's been over a few years now. You expecting trouble...in New York of all places?" he asked, a little sceptical.

Crossing her arms, Rose leaned in slightly. "Actually...I am lookin' for trouble. Seen anythin'...I dunno, strange lately?" It was the best descriptor she could use. From ethereal projections of aliens that had barely survived the time war popping up in Cardiff to the devil incarnate chained in the mouth of a black hole, she was really looking for anything.

Soloman inhaled, shoved his hands in his pockets as he frowned at the darkness around them. "Since you ask..." he paused, "been men goin' missing from the camp for the past few weeks. Police try to say they just up and moved but...it's mostly them as get taken for a project in the sewers."

"Show me," Rose said with a force that surprised him.

At the lip of a sewer hole, Rose flicked on her slim torch to look within it and Soloman looked surprised once again, took a better look at the gun slung over her shoulder. "You Brits got some impressive kit."

Rose didn't reply, just clenched the light in her teeth and dropped into the hole swiftly. Leaning his head into the hole, Soloman said to her, "you going alone?"

"Yeah," Rose said up to him, screwing the torch into the slot underneath the barrel of her rifle.

"Not usually how the army works. You never go alone."

Rose raised the butt of her rifle to her shoulder, the light cutting through the deep darkness. "My team's a long way away. Just me for this." She looked up into Soloman's face, vaguely illuminated by her light. "Thanks."

She set off, the tunnels quiet, placing one boot in front of the other. Three quarters of an hour into the labyrinth, Rose fired a shot in before a moving shadow. "Stand to!" she hollered.

"Don't shoot!" the shadow cried, hands raised above its head as Rose approached it, rifle levelled.

"What do ya know about men disapearin' down here?" she asked.

"You're a woman," the shadow said with surprise.

"You're observant," Rose retorted, stepping to within a few feet of the beast, her torch outlining every detail of the grotesqueness of the face as it slowly lowered its hands to regard her.

"I've just...never seen a woman holding a gun before, that's all, it's pretty strange."

"Never seen anything half as weird as a pig-man before...an' for me, that's really sayin' somethin'." Rose admitted, lowering the barrel of the gun to point at his feet. "Ya don't look dangerous to me."

The creature let out an unamused huff of breath. "You've gotta be the only person who'll ever say that to me again."

"Tell me what's been done to ya, an' who did it," she ordered and Rose and the Doctor observing her wondered where her sympathy had gone, sympathy that was once so easily garnered. He led her through the tunnels for almost an hour longer, then up so many flights of stairs Rose had to wait for him as he weakened. She had stopped pointing the gun at him long ago.

"I think I'm dying," the creature whispered to her at the last flight of stairs.

Rose looked him over, placed two fingers against his throat and leaned in to listen to his breathing. "You sound rough," she agreed, stepping back. "I can't help ya, I'm sorry," she said, her face hard and the creature nodded.

"They're through there...good luck."

Looking at him a second longer, Rose crouched and made her way along a catwalk until she could regard the floor below. The Daleks were a disappointment rather than fear inducing and she watched them for a long while.

"Cult a' Skaro," she whispered, shaking her head, "all your fault." Sighting down on them, she steadied herself.

"Four...Daleks," the Doctor said, impressed with her brazenness.

"I'm a really great shot," Rose stated as her remembered self opened fire, hitting each Dalek with two shots before the last one standing could take aim at her. Their shredded hulks smoked below as Rose descended and walked to the incomplete wall, pushing aside plastic sheets as she went.

She laughed after the moment it had taken her to figure it out. "Empire State building," she said softly.

Two hours later, she shifted out of 1930s New York just as the top of the incomplete Empire State building erupted in an explosion. The waiting human-dalek shells and the commandless pig slaves went with it and they were never mentioned in conjunction with the story of the accident as it was later described.

-#-

Rose arrived back in the centre of the time machine with all eyes on her, relief settling around the room when she stepped from the machine of her own accord. Her team quickly averted their gaze from the tired, hollow look in her eyes and Rose passed them without a word. No one had to ask as to the success of the mission.

Some rudimentary hot provisions were always available at UNIT seeing as people were often coming and going at all hours of the night and day. Rose availed herself of these, devouring her food with single-minded ferocity, ignoring the few other personnel in the mess. A quick glance at her comm told her it was six pm, one week after her and her team had arrived in the parallel world, her home world.

The food coupled with the low in the wake of the adrenaline wearing off saw Rose having a hard time keeping her eyes open and focused as she walked into the hanger. Walking up to the main console, Rose didn't dare sit at it, knowing she would fall asleep the second her body was supported. She regarded it for a long minute as one of the tech's tentatively asked her what adjustments they should make. She failed to answer him and instead, after another long moment of contemplation, reached down for a rubber mallet that lay on the ground and walloped the console, sending a cascade of sparks into the air. The tech's ducked and by the time they looked up, Rose was walking to the blue box.

"Take the night," she called warily over her shoulder.

Bending at the hips, Rose unhooked the couplings that joined the massive cables which linked the Tardis to the console, tossed them aside and slammed the Tardis door shut. Every inch of her hurt as she leaned with both hands on the console. They had been a week in the parallel world but Rose knew she had been travelling for longer than that, some chronal sixth sense told her so. That she had been so close to the Doctor on the Lychandrian ship came back to Rose and anger burned trough her,

"Where are ya!?" she raged, slamming a fist down on the console

"Well, here. At least, a bit a' me is."

She spun quickly to see the Northern Doctor behind her, smiling his daft smile, big ears and all.  
For a moment, just a moment, she was overcome with hope, mind-numbingly euphoric hope. Then reality set in and she stiffened, the light leaving her face. "A bit a ya...the bit that's in my head, ya mean, from the game station?"  
"Yes," the Northern Doctor replied.

Rose sighed, her shoulders slumping imperceptibly.

"You would prefer the idiot?" the Northern Doctor said knowingly and Rose settled her butt against the console tiredly and regarded him. He crossed his arms, put his weight jauntily on one leg.

"Why do you call him the idiot?" Rose asked, recalling the dream she had had just after the Beach.

Something shifted in the Northern Doctor's stone grey eyes. They didn't roam her face to take in the bruise on her jaw, stayed locked with hers instead. "It's because of him that you're in this mess. How stupid does a man have to be to do all of this to you, Rose Tyler?"

Her name on his lips made her close her eyes, her breath initially hitching from the emotion, her chest and stomach staying constricted from the physical pain in them thereafter. She had expected he would still be there when she opened her eyes but he was gone and she was exhausted. She slept like she might never wake up again and part of her was disappointed when she did.

-#-

Two more weeks in the parallel world's timeline, countless more in terms of how long she travelled and nothing. Rose's only consolation was that the next shift took her outside of London two days into the future, sparing her the radioactive fall out she would not have survived and letting her know what she had to do.

She silently thanked the Tardis upon her return and told Magambo that she needed to evacuate UNIT headquarters. Two days later, a spaceship replica of the Titanic decimated London, sending a blanket of radiation over the area, from Crawley to Stevenage, Oxford to Basildon.

Magambo subjected Rose to a scathing, obscenity laden tirade for an hour and a half on how she was capable of letting all those people die for lack of a warning. Not seeming to hear most of it, Rose worked on the time machine the entire time, trying to make sense of the shift reads for the past two weeks, trying to see some pattern in the Tardis' logic that would allow her to predict the shift, better direct it.

"Her family was in London," Wolfram said quietly to Rose after Magambo had left, the hanger still ringing in the unnatural silence she had left behind. When she didn't respond, he pushed ever so slightly, "time travel...we can undo this, right?"

Rose looked sharply aside at him, a deep frown creasing her once flawless features. "This...never happened. It's...wrong...it's..." she let out a frustrated groan, the mechanics of the spatial-temporal matrix being far too complicated for such simple ideas as 'undoing' anything. "The man we need would have been on that ship, the Titanic, that's a fixed point in time," Rose tried again, Wolfram frowning at her. "If we can restore him t'this time stream, these fixed points still happen, the Titanic will still happen, just like the Globe Theatre, just like Manhattan, only the outcomes'll be different."

"So the nuclear storm...?" Wolfram ventured, uncertain he followed clearly.

"Could still happen," Rose said, returning to plugging away at code on the console with angry taps of keys. "But if he's here, I doubt it," she murmured after a minute.

"How do we...restore him?" Wolfram asked and Rose didn't meet his eyes, instead rubbed at her forehead as she looked at the flashing green lines of code on the screen before her.

She thought about the parallel time streams she had seen and how even the slim fragments of Doctor's vast knowledge that she now had access to contained no trace of any such phenomenon. "We find him...because I honestly don't know."

-#-

When Rose's memory resolved the landscape of the next shift, the Doctor whispered, "no," very quietly. He had thought to bring Martha to Cheem and they had only just escaped. "No, no, no," he repeated and at his side, Rose squeezed his hand.

It was a testament to how done with the whole process Rose was that she barely looked around, just long enough to establish that the world was alien, before regarding her comm equally quickly then raising it to her lips. "Base, spool it up, bring me back." It was harder to keep the frustration form her voice the longer this went on.

She dropped her arm heavily and began walking about, more to keep herself alert than to explore. The emptiness of the city got to her within seconds. It towered and sprawled, a massive network of enormous trees woven into structures that resembled buildings.

A whisper in a northern accent curled through Rose's mind, _Cheem_. She frowned, trying to place the name for a second before it came to her. The trees, the living trees. It was their planet.

It was empty.

Rose's heart started to pump harder, goose pimples broke out over her flesh and she slung her Rifle around and brought it to her shoulder, slowly spun on the spot to better survey her surroundings.

"Shit," she whispered, wondering how she had let herself get so exposed, a multitude of hiding places visible in the branches above her. Slowly, she backed toward the nearest trunk. A shot just missed the toe of her boot and Rose fired roughly in the in the direction it had come, moving faster to gain her cover.

"Do you smell, mother of mine?" A giddy voice.

"Yes, son of mine."

"The scent of a Time Lord, mother of mine."

"At long last, son of mine."

Rose listened to this with growing disquiet from her cover. Whatever the source of the voices, their owners were speaking English, confusing enough given that Cheem was light years from Earth. The Time Lord biorhythm detector had also not hit on the planet, which meant that whatever they were, they were talking about her.

"Base, how long for the shift?" she whispered into her comm.

" **About an hour twenty.** "

Rose wet her lips, thought hard, just as a face peered around a corner at her and smiled. The face brought Rose back to the first trip she had ever taken with the Doctor, Platform One and the trees. Then a blaster was levelled at her and Rose was thankful for her quick reflexes, firing first and sprinting away in a storm of blaster fire.

She ran harder than she ever had before and considering she had travelled with the Doctor, that was impressive. As she went, she tried to focus on the details she needed to stay alive. Their voices and the blaster patterns told her there were two of them behind her. Her training told her if there was already more than one, there was likely more than two and herding had always been a good strategy.

Turning abruptly, Rose caught them out and picked off the first tree-humanoid her sights found, shattering it into a million flaming splinters before it could scream. Its compatriot's blaster fire hit Rose in the stomach and she was kicked back, rolled to the side and found cover before quickly pointing her gun back out. Her hunter no where in sight, Rose slipped back around the tree she sheltered behind and regarded the wound in her stomach, fused into a tight black hole the size of a tea cup saucer. She swallowed, the pain intense, the difficulty she was having breathing alarming.

To take her mind off of these facts, Rose stood and began moving around the tree-building, opposite the way she had come, listening to the angry mutterings of the other hunter. She tracked him for a long while, never quite managing to set eyes on him until she finally saw movement as she rounded one of the massive trunks. The motion of bringing the butt of the rifle to her shoulder spared her head as a blaster shot struck the tree where it had been only seconds before.

And she was running again, once more pursued by a pair of them, this time her stomach slowing her an unacceptable amount. She just couldn't breath properly. Having no choice, Rose ducked aside and leant against one of the trunks, heaving lungfulls as quietly as she could. She would wait for them to come to her.

With a crack like a whip, a stiff tendril shot from the adjacent tree-building and wrapped about Rose's neck. Clutching at the vine, Rose was dragged forward to the tree that wielded the liana, the grin in its face unnatural.

"Time Lord," the tree stated triumphantly.

"Idiot," Rose choked, pulling on the liana to bring the tree closer, kicking out its feet. In the scuffle that ensued, the tree was outmatched and Rose managed to pin it face down, bring her hand around its face and snap its neck. The blackness that had been creeping into Rose's vision from the periphery receded as the liana loosened around her neck and she ripped at it to get it off.

"Sister of mine?" The frantic calls came immediately and Rose staggered to her feet once more, pelted unsteadily away from the inquiring voices. She tripped on a root, clumsy in a way she wouldn't have otherwise been were she not injured, and snapped from existence.

Landing in the time machine, the shift caused Rose to hit hard, winding her. Once more, her team rushed to their sprawled leader.

The Doctor sat slumped on an operating bench and watched Sandra and her team, excising burned tissue, sewing up Rose's liver sans a sizeable portion, rejoining the severed portions of her large intestine. Before the sleeping gas had knocked her out, Rose's eyes had been slivers of blood red, every vessel shot from being choked. Around her neck, a near black bruise with blood seeping from small abrasions about it.

"Could've been worse," Rose said, watching.

"You were aware of what was happening...even though were asleep," the Doctor realised suddenly, looking at her and Rose shrugged.

"Didn't feel it, if that's what you're worried about," and she nodded at him to reach out to the memory for the sensation she had felt then. He did so, felt nothing. "I lived, s'all that matters."

Hesitantly, the Doctor lifted the hem of her t-shirt to stare at the faint scar on her abdomen, a mottled patch the size of a hand. His war had lasted 200 years but Rose had managed to condense the level of violence he had faced in half that time into about a month.

Letting his hand drop, he rubbed at his eyes, exhausted from the exchange of memories and the emotions they evoked. Rose was too, he could feel it in their connection and he stood to hold her, his cheek on the crown of her head.

"M'okay," she said softly, mistaking the gesture for concern over her in the memory.

"I know," he said in amazement, realising it was true. Whatever she had seen, whatever she had done, she had survived and was still, more or less the brilliant soul he cared for more than anyone else in the multiverse. And she was sharing parts of herself that shamed and wounded her with him, trying to bind him to her in a psychic feat that would've nearly undone the hardiest Time Lord.

He hugged her tighter, willed his mental strength into her, never wanting her to be as alone as she had been in any of those memories ever again.

-#-

Rose spared the cemetery a longer glance than she normally did her surroundings after a shift, on account of how it was a cemetery and that was at least something new. Not just a city, a cemetery. A familiar feeling of frustration and exhaustion swept over her when her comm flashed out the not quite Time Lord signal on the biorhythm tracker. She was just about to check the date when the sun dappled day blinked from around her and she suddenly found herself in mist covered field in the dead of night, breath coming out of her in thick clouds.

"The hell?" she said, rifle instantly in her hands and levelled, turning on the spot to take in her new surroundings and possibly find cover.

 **Bad Wolf? BAD WOLF?** Rose's comm assaulted her ears in the quiet of the night.

"Hush up, will ya?" she hissed back, afraid lest she be found by someone or something she'd rather not be. "No bloody code names, what'd I tell ya?"

 **Sorry, we just lost you for twenty minutes there...**

Rose frowned. What?"

 **Your signal went down...we couldn't raise you on the comm for twenty minutes.**

Turning her wrist upward and looking over the stock of the rifle, Rose read the date. December 2, 1954. "What the bloody hell," she bit out in a confused whisper.

"Yeah, s'a bit of a mind fuck," a voice called from the mist and Rose levelled her gun in the general direction of it. "Put the gun down, I won't hurt ya."

Rose's eyes narrowed. "How d'ya know I've got a gun?" A figure materialised from the mist and Rose's eyes went wide.

"Cause I'd have a gun pointed at me if I were you...an' I was."

Those observing the memory shivered at the mental discomfort of two different perspectives of the same event colliding. The Doctor started to giggle.

"Wow...I've never talked to myself!" he said, a manic grin on his features.

At his side, Rose frowned. "What d'ya mean you've never talked to yourself? I've seen your memories, your different selves have held bloody townhall meetin's together." She crossed her arms.

"Weeelll, Yeeeah, but _technically_ never been in the same place...as the same person..."

Rose let out a bark of a laugh. "That's a bloody big technicality," she said, knowing he meant the human him and the Time Lord him.

He sniffed. "Didn't share memories then. It's completely different."

Snorting in disbelief, Rose shook her head at him and the memory resumed.

"Don't move," Rose whispered, gun still levelled at the woman who looked identical to her, her mind running over every possible way in which this could be a trap.

The other Rose was unperturbed. "I know your thinkin' somethin's up. But y've got t'trust me. I'm you, but in the future. The near future."

The gun didn't move and the other Rose sighed. "There's nothin' I can say to make this easier. You're already thinkin' whatever could be capable of takin' your shape could be able to get in your head, get your memories, your feelin's."

Grip on the gun tightening, Rose shifted a little closer to her doppelgänger. That was exactly what she had been thinking. The other Rose took a step closer despite the gun. "One of two things happens, you know that, an' I already know which."

"Either I shoot ya," Rose said low and deadly, "or I don't..."

"And I shoot ya...or I don't," the other Rose finished. After a minute, Rose groaned loudly in frustration and lowered the rifle, the other Rose twitching the corner of her lips up.

"Now I can let ya in on the secret. I don't shoot ya."

Rose shook her head in disbelief at the whole situation.

 **It's going to take us longer than normal to bring you back. We've lost your shift coordinates**.

"Shit," Rose hissed, then into her comm, "how long?"

"Ten hours," the other Rose said as the comm chattered back.

 **About Ten hours**.

Rose looked at herself, then down at the comm. The strange biorhythm signal was gone and there was no sign of the Doctor. "Just get working on it," she said, barely keeping the exasperation from her tone.

 **We're on it**.

The other Rose was lighting a cigarette and offered the pack to Rose when she approached. Rose frowned at the other woman. "I don't smoke," she said obviously.

Shrugging, the other Rose stuffed the pack into her blue jacket. "Let me know when your toes go numb."

They set off, the other Rose leading them across the shin high grass, Rose lost in contemplation about what exactly had happened, how and how worried she should be. A thought occurred to her but the other Rose spoke before she could.

"No, ya can't ask me anythin' about your future. I don't know exactly what's goin' on, but playin' with that kind a knowledge in our here and now is dangerous."

Rose sighed, hugged herself as the damp air seeped through her clothes. She looked aside at her counterpart as the other woman took a drag of her smoke.

After a long stretch of contemplative and silent walking, the other Rose stopped abruptly and frowned in thought, drew deeply on her fag. "Right...she's here..." she murmured as she turned in a circle, squinted into the dark. "Oi!" she called out and Rose glared at her.

"What the hell?" Rose hissed.

"That you lot then?" came a voice form the mist and Rose spun to look in it's direction, crouched, her rifle levelled.

"Yeah, s'us," the other Rose called nonchalantly.

The Doctor would have howled with laughter had the memory not required so much focus, been so confusing. Three perspectives on the same event was maddening, the most he had ever dealt with was two. At his side, Rose frowned in uncomfortable concentration as she tried to hold the memory together for them.

The third Rose materialised with a fag already dangling form her lips and Rose soon lost track of which had come first as the two stood talking.

"Bloody circus this is."

"Tell me about it. Should get you back faster this time, though, getting' easier to trace the faulty shift."

"If it is a faulty shift. But yeah, should be faster."

"Jesus fucking christ! what's going on?" Rose stormed at her selfs. They looked over at her, puffed on and dropped their fags to their sides in identical motions.

"Sorry. We know we didn't tell ya anythin' when we were you, so we can't say anythin'," they said simultaneously, looked at one another with narrowed eyes a second, then back at Rose. Rose groaned, stamped her feet a few times as they started to tingle, then looked up at her selfs. They looked back at her knowingly, one stepping toward her with a hand outstretched. The red package she held out had 'Pall Mall' written in yellow letters with a coat of arms similarly coloured. Rose took it and clumsily knocked out a fag, put it between her lips as her counterpart held out a light. She coughed harshly as they continued walking, glowering at the practised way in which her future selfs inhaled.

It did help with the cold though.

"Where're we goin'?" Rose asked after a while.

"Gettin' t'shelter," one of them replied, "which reminds me, should we make a run for it? I don't fancy getting' caught out if we don't have ta-"

The other shook their head. "It never works anyway-"

"But we always do it-"

"Fine."

And they ran. Cresting a hill, the lights of a building became visible through the mist just as a rain started, a wind coming with it that blew it nearly sideways. They were drenched by the time they reached the cluster of buildings, a farm stead by the looks of it. The nearest shelter was a barn and they wrenched at the heavy wooden door to open it a foot, each slipping in then applying their weight to close it again. They stood panting, appreciating that the barn was at least a little warmer than outside. Another round of smokes were lit, the small dancing flame illuminating the three identical faces like a scene out of Macbeth, Rose coughing again.

"'Least you figure it out," the other Rose said to the third Rose.

"How's that?"

"You're the last one," the other Rose reasoned, "Sos you've got've figured it out or there'd be a fourth."

The third Rose shrugged which neither of her compatriots found very comforting. Rose started to pace, eyeing the other two hard. "Problem with the shift," she muttered, then shook her head, "nah, can't have been, s'worked up 'til now." The other Roses watched her with mild curiosity. "Then there was that weird reading," she continued under her breath, "could've been that..."

Suddenly she stopped and walked back up to her selfs. "If I'm tryin' to find a way to get around this, that means I've always tried to get 'round this and you lot still show up regardless...so there's no point in me tryin' to figure it out." They looked at her, dragging on their fags in silence. Rose sighed and turned away. "Why is it so fucking hard to find him?"

Again, the other two treated this as a rhetorical question but the third Rose, the one who had arrived last, narrowed her eyes in thought.

"Do you remember how he used to wake us up in the morning?" the other Rose said with a small smile after a long silence.

"The old him would bang on the door until we answered then hand us a coffee," the third Rose said, the same smile creeping onto her lips.

"He never bothered knocking after he changed," Rose added, "he'd barge in and-"

"Ask our opinion on what tie he should wear," the other Rose finished and the three of them laughed.

"I loved that brown one with the-"

"Kinda blue swirly things on it?"

"Yes!"

"He always wanted to wear that...black...grey thing-"

"With the squares-"

"So boring."

The Doctor watched them all with a daft grin on his face. "I always knew you hated that tie, just wanted to bug you, Weeell, needed an excuse to see you in the morning."

Rose smacked him as her three remembered selfs reminisced, the only person any of them had met in years who recalled the Doctor with as much fondness as they did.

 **We've got a lock on you** , one of their comms buzzed.

The third Rose replied into hers, "bring me back." She looked at her younger selfs and nodded.

"Good luck," the two said in unison and their third blinked from existence with a flash of light.

The other Rose lasted another hour before she was likewise shifted back to her team and Rose was left alone, another four hours to go.

She was petting one of the horses when the barn opened, the night still thick outside, and a lantern appeared, then an arm and finally a man. He started when he saw Rose.

"What're you doing?" the man asked, frowning at her, fairly polite all things considered.

"Sorry," Rose said, facing him, "just needed to get out of the weather.

The man held his lantern a little higher. "Wernt plannin' on pilferin' any of me livestock with that gun, were ya?"

Rose looked over her shoulder at the barrel of her rifle before smiling sheepishly at the man. "No, sorry, I'm..." she hesitated, "m'with the army." She shrugged, not feeling terribly creative, the nicotine keeping her awake but not on her toes.

"You're a woman," the man pointed out and Rose remembered the date.

"Yeah...well...it's a brave new world."

Again, the man frowned at her. "Nearest barracks' in Harlow, what're doing here?"

"Got lost." Another shrug. "Where is this?"

"We're in Clavering, that's a long way to have come lost," he looked at Rose like she was thick and she was certain she was setting the women's rights movement back a decade with him.

"Long, long training exercise," she improvised and something in her face must have convinced the farmer of the fact because he nodded sympathetically.

"Well," he took out a lighter and a pack of smokes, handed them to Rose. It was a red labelled pack of Pall Malls. "Have a fag and when I'm done with Nancy, I'll make ya a cuppa."

Rose thanked him quietly and lit a smoke. He refused to take the cigarettes or lighter back when Rose offered and she pocketed them with a smirk. "Who's Nancy?"

The farmer grinned broadly and patted the doe eyed jersey at the back of the stable.

"I fought in France," he said over the sound of milk hitting the tin bottom of the pail, "It's not any kind of place I'd wish on a woman...not any kind of place I'd wish on anyone."

Leaned against the wood of the stall, Rose watched the almost hypnotic movement of the milking. "Tell me about the day the war ended, for you I mean, when ya heard," Rose asked softly.

Smoking like it was an old habit, she listened with a burning hope to a story of a man seeing the end of something he never dreamed he would. His relief at coming home, at seeing the people he loved again and the second chance at life all spoke to Rose. She wanted, she wished, she prayed to Time and Space.

-#-

Rose was amazed when the shift spit her out exactly where she had been before she was ripped to 1954, cemetery and all. She was unimpressed as hell when a second later she found herself on a misty moor in the thick of night. Swearing under her breath, she turned at the sound of her code name coming through over a comm some distance from her. She raised a brow, remembered, sighed, and walked toward it.

-#-

The third time it happened, she was glad the earlier versions of herself were a ways away, allowing her to curse an undignified blue streak. She was collected by the time she heard herself call out in the mist. Grateful that the interval between losing the time she wanted and getting back to her team was shorter, Rose arrived in the Time machine and told the personnel and science workers to take the night. She strode into the Tardis, unhooking the couplings, and shut the door.

Leaning on the console, Rose took a deep breath and let her mind open, hearing the mournful sound of the Tardis more clearly as she did so. "Are ya here?" she asked into the stillness of the console room, eyes closed. "I need your help, I can't figure out what's going on with this...temporal shift."  
Opening her eyes, she smiled wearily. "Hi."

He was across the console from her, arms crossed, a smile in his eyes. "You keep getting thrown back in time," he stated and she had to focus on his words, not how his voice warmed her soul.

"Yeah...I'm in 2007 one minute, 1954 the next," she said, shaking her head. She had thought it was a problem with the machine, then she had thought it could be a problem with the Tardis but more and more she thought it might be something at the shift point. "There's a weird signal...the biorhythm tracker, in 2007, there's something there..."

He moved slowly around the console to stand next to her and Rose fought for focus. "Maybe the biorhythm tracker isn't just tracking biorhythms."

Rose frowned. "How d'ya mean?"

"Think about it, it gave you a strange signal for the Daleks in New York, what do they have in common with Time Lords?"

"Nothing!" Rose said vehemently and had to smile at herself when the Doctor grinned. She tapped her foot as his grey eyes searched her face. "Emergency temporal shifts," Rose whispered suddenly and he nodded, pleased with her. She thought hard, wetted her lips, something tickling the far reaches of her brain. "Angels."

"Not a bad guess," Northern conceded as Rose looked to the ceiling of the Tardis in disbelief at her own stupidity.

"Of course, that's why I get thrown back t'the same place each time." Groaning, she closed her eyes and felt him pull her into a hug from behind, his long arms about her shoulders, his cheek at her temple.

"Don't do that," Rose said quietly even as she leaned back into his embrace.  
"Why's that?" the Northern Doctor murmured in her ear.  
"Because I'm tired an' when I'm tired I can't always focus properly and you might just be-" Rose looked over her shoulder to find there was no one there, "gone."

-#-

There was no need to return to 2007. It was far enough in the future, far enough away geographically that Rose decided the angels could bloody well have a corner of London, it didn't matter. The whole event had made her cautious of her biorhythm tracker though, uncertain of whether or not it was hindering or helping, especially given her success rate at locating the Doctor with it.

She worked on the time machine and the targeting for a week and still had no brilliant ideas. Slaving the Tardis to something that approximately homed in on Time Lord physiology was the best idea she had. It was the only idea she had.

And it left a nasty feeling in her gut as she stood within the time machine again and her team counted her down. A modicum of relief washed over Rose when she found the shift had at least not taken her back to the cemetery, that her adjustments had been enough. The relief was short lived as she felt fatigue hit her in a way it hadn't for any of the other shifts, not even when she had been injured.

The world she stood on was barren, all rocks and dust and inhospitable blackness. "No stars," Rose whispered as she looked up, gravely concerned by the inky sky. Her comm wouldn't settle on the date, kept scrolling through numbers and Rose eventually switched to the biorhythm read. Nothing.

"Fuck sakes," she whispered. "Base? Get me back," she said into the comm before taking out a fag and lighting it. She walked to stay awake in the hours it would be before she could be retrieved.

"Where was this again?" Rose asked as she watched her remembered self hike amongst the desolation. She knew from his memories that this had in fact been a place the Doctor had visited.

"100 trillion," the Doctor said, looking about the empty space with mild interest.

"Blimey, no wonder I felt like trash," she said with a shake of her head.

"Uncapsuled trip almost a hundred trillion years, yeeeeaah," he conceded, impressed with her, "might feel like you need a nap."

Rose smiled, "made this bit cake." The Doctor frowned at her in question as a carrying cry echoed from the hills.

"HUUUUUUMMAAAAAAN!"

The Doctor's face fell. Rose smiled sympathetically.

In the memory, Rose stood with a fag dangling form her lips, easing her rifle around her shoulder and into her hands when the first of them appeared. "Shit," she whispered, the fag falling as she dropped the gun from her shoulder, a wave of screaming people crashing down the hill across the way from her.

There was no other choice. She ran.

Her limbs protested, adrenaline struggling to combat the fatigue of a shift so brutally far in the future. Had she not been exhausted by that fact, Rose might have outrun them, she was in good enough shape. As it was she stumbled too often, recognized the tell tale signs that her body would fail her any minute. She was a little surprised when it was her mind that did so first, letting her run into a ravine without noticing, run into a wall with her pursuers on all sides without noticing.

Rose's shoulder hit the wall, she rolled, her pistol coming out as she did so and she was firing. This succeeded in slowing the horde momentarily as they tripped over their comrades but she was beset in a second.

It was another one of those memories where the Doctor stood breathing heavily, fists clenched at his sides as his blood swam with the chemicals that had coursed through her body. He couldn't even see her anymore, could barely make out the sound of her struggles, her angry shouts as she tried to fend them off. He felt her flagging.

"ROSE!" the Doctor shouted, felt her hand slip into his as the surroundings changed instantaneously.

They were back in the time machine, two of the futurekind still latched onto Rose in the memory. She kicked one off of her, shot it down, elbowed the other that had its teeth sunk into her shoulder, spun and fired.

Wolfram was the first of the team in the circle of the time machine and she spun on him, wild eyed and bleeding, trembling with adrenaline and shock from the shift, her blaster levelled at his face. He drew up short, hands raised palm toward her. Rose's finger was still on the trigger.

"Bad Wolf," he whispered, low enough that only she could hear. Rose's breathing was sporadic as she stood, gun still pointing at him, unable to process that she was safe.

" _Tyler_ ," Wolfram tried again, his whisper sharper and Rose abruptly stood from her readied position, lowered her pistol with aching slowness, the brightness in her eyes still present as she looked aside at the things she had brought back with her.

Gun down, the Bio workers rushed to look at the futurekind as Rose dropped to a knee beside them.

"What are th-" one of the workers began to ask her but Rose cut through the question.

"Burn them," she said.

Standing, Rose found Sandra waiting behind her and let herself be led from the hanger, no one daring to touch her. Following, it was Wolfram who delicately pried the pistol from Rose's iron grip, her fingers unwilling to part with it of their own accord. Only then did he nod to the medics and they began to stitch her up. Rose collapsed back on the table heavily and was asleep before anyone mentioned anaesthetics. She didn't feel the needles and string that bound her flesh back together.

Nightmares pitched her from her bed on two occasions, dropping her to the floor both times, her body too low on energy to even support her weight. Each time medics got her back onto the bed and she was asleep before they'd fully managed it.

When she finally woke properly, Sandra informed her she had slept three days and Rose groaned through her dry mouth. Sandra protesting, Rose hauled herself into her battered and bloodied clothing and went to the Tardis. Every inch of her hurt every step of the way and she was angry. They had been at this for months and she felt they were farther away from accomplishing their mission, not closer.

Frustrated, Rose threw herself on the cot and ripped at the button on her jeans, plunged a hand into them and thought of him. At the time, she hadn't paid much attention to which him it was she thought about, either would have done. He had been on her mind a lot at that time, that version of him, it seemed only proper it was his daft face she fantasised about.

"You trusted him more than me," the Doctor murmured, watching her memory of the fantasy, watching his former self snogging Rose Tyler with a determined focus.

"What makes ya say that?" Rose asked from his side, biting at her thumb nail in mild discomfort at the scene before them.

"You just did," the Doctor stated, a fact. And it was true. Infused in the memory was the real reason Rose had thought of the Northern Doctor then. He was safety, reliability in a way the man he became never was to her.

Uneasy for a different reason then, Rose looked askance at the Doctor, tried to read his feelings. "He needed me more'n you," she said softly, another fact, "an' I think that made him keep me closer."

"I kept you close!" he said with more ferocity than he had intended, making him realise he was more wounded by this than he had thought.

"No you didn't! Marseilles t'the pits of hell, you loved swanin' off on your own!" Rose snapped back.

"Only because I trusted you to handle yourself!" the Doctor said. "I always did! He knew you would need to grow and that you never would with him coddling you. So when he changed he wanted to be the person you had made him, made me, someone softer, someone easier to love! An...an equal!"

Somewhere in his tirade, Rose had stopped looking at him with reactive fury and was instead questioning. "You didn't think I loved you...like that, when you were...him..." she frowned at the insufficiency of the English language and instead projected the essence of the question at the Doctor with as much force and clarity as she could.

"No, I thought I was too hard," a voice said softly behind Rose and she turned to find him, the Northern Doctor, looking solemn. "I was callous...I didn't listen...I was stupid, so stupid sometimes."

Rose shook her head, not quite comprehending.

"He," the Northern Doctor nodded his head at the man behind Rose and she quickly looked over her shoulder, "he wouldn't have taken you to see your father's death. He would have been smarter than that."

"You call _him_ the idiot," Rose pointed out.

"You should hear what he calls me," Northern said with a broad smile and Rose let out a single laugh.

"Did ya really not know how I felt about ya?" she asked, suddenly feeling like she was 19 again.

"I knew," he said quietly, "I knew you wanted more...I knew the limits of what I could give you."

"So when ya changed..." Rose asked, unsure if she wanted to know the answer to her half a question.

"I nudged the process a little, steered myself towards someone I thought you'd appreciate a bit more."

"Fixed the face, for one," the Doctor said under his breath behind Rose and Northern glared at him.

"I liked your face," Rose said with a short, pained laugh and the Northern Doctor smiled warmly at her. "You were handsome, really, that," she indicated the fantasy, where he had driven her mad by the very idea of kissing him, "that wasn't nothing."

He smiled, moved closer to her and Rose looked at her feet, certain she was blushing. "Would you ever have done that?" she asked, looking aside at the fantasy briefly before retuning her gaze to his green jumper, briefly flickering to his eyes.

"I wouldn't have come to you, no," he said truthfully, "but clever you, you already knew that."

She shrugged. Even on their first journey's, Rose had had the vague feeling that whatever he felt for her was deep but that the height of it physically, for him, was to hold her hand. Getting to know him better, sharing some of his memories after he'd changed, she'd learned that wasn't just him, that was a Time Lord thing.

"Except for that kiss, yeah?" Rose said after a minute, thinking of Satellite Five, warmly smiling at him and he grinned daftly back at her.

"I like kissing, me. Those moves I told you about, kissing was definitely my favourite." Rose looked up at him and he nodded earnestly. "Why do you think the idiot gets off on licking everything? Comes by that honestly."

They looked over at the other Doctor who, true to his human nature, was more than a little invested in the show of himself, even his former self, snogging a writhing Rose Tyler.

Rose shook her head, crossed her arms. "You never did any of that," she stated.

"Not that you saw," Northern said and pulled her into a kiss.

Like any physically defined act that occurred in mind space, Rose experienced it as though through her senses of taste and touch, of sight and scent. The Doctor had explained it as a compilation of shared knowledge on their parts, of what the sensations were that comprised each act, even something as simple as when they held hands.

The kiss then, she knew, was part what she remembered their first and only kiss being, part what she imagined it would be and equally part of those things for the Doctor. Meaning it was about as close to reality as one could get. And it was brilliant.

"You're really good at that," she breathed when his lips parted from hers.

"Told you, my favourite," he said softly as she leaned her head against his chest, felt the cool of him bleeding through the leather jacket. She looked back to the memory, to the fantasy she had had, and felt how unbelievably good that unending kiss had been. Somehow, and Rose suspected this was not a trick of the mind, she had not wanted for breath during it, so practised had he been.

She blushed when he took his tongue lower down her abdomen in the memory. "That wasn't a kiss," she said, biting her lip.

"A kiss," the Northern Doctor said as though reading words form a page, "a touch of lips signifying a greeting, reverence, love or desire. Looks like a kiss to me."

Rose laughed as her remembered self cried out under the Doctor's caresses. She turned to smile at the Northern Doctor but he was gone and Rose frowned, looked about to find the brown suited Doctor watching her, seeming exhausted.

"Sorry," he said quietly, "I'm tired. I couldn't keep him here."

Rose shook her head at that, "S'okay."

"You can see him again...often as you like after this," the Doctor said, stuffing his hands in his pockets, showing his fatigue.

Stepping to him, Rose ran her hands over his face, through his hair, across his shoulders and chest and he was smiling tiredly by the time she let them rest on his lapels. "Janus," she whispered, "two faces, past an' future. God of change...of time, in the sense of beginnin's and endin's.

"You're the same man t'me...I see so much of him in ya..."

The Doctor wrapped his arms around her and she did likewise, sensing that he felt vulnerable, insufficient.

"It's not that I trust ya less than him," Rose said, having had time to think through the nature of her feelings about the Northern Doctor. "Right then...and now...I've already lost him, pain's already there. But you?" They watched the fantasy fade, endorphins flooding Rose's system as she slipped her hand from inside her jeans, brought both hands to her face as it twisted in grief. "You were still out there...always the chance I'd find ya...always the chance I'd lose ya." They looked at one another, his face hard and old. "Still always the chance I'll lose ya," she whispered and he pulled her forcefully to his chest, held her until he knew it hurt, knowing she wouldn't settle for less.

He watched her sob upon the cot in the Tardis. "I'm sorry," he said softly, still with an edge to his voice, "I'm so sorry."

-#-

Another week lost to recuperation and the shift brought Rose to ancient Rome. A little bit of poking around while she waited for the return shift, there being sign of the Doctor's biorhythm, and she discovered the creatures in the heart of Pompei. The Doctor thought her eyes looked hollow as she walked from the mountain and when she was a suitable distance, triggered the charges she had placed within it. Amidst screams and ash and failing light, Rose looked out over the city she had doomed and the Doctor realised he had never felt so close to her, had never understood her so well.

-#-

She returned from Pompei finished with the whole mission, fed up and burnt out. She turned in the time machine and stared hard at the Tardis, ignoring her team. "What is it then? Huh? What do you know that I don't? Can ya help me? Can ya?" _Why is it so fucking hard to find him_ , she thought.

She was breathing hard, her body so worn down. The warmth that spread from her chest to the last stretches of her finger tips and toes seemed natural, comforting. Her eyes glowed golden though no one else saw it with her back to them. As though guided by an invisible hand, Rose saw the parallel time streams flying by in her mind. Enough flashes to tell a story as though on fast forward, to show how important Donna had been, how she had saved the Doctor's life time and again, not just on Christmas Eve. And Rose saw herself in the altered time stream talking to Donna, knew in that moment what needed to be done as a point flashed at the same stretch along the parallel orange strands. Rose held on to it, to the feel of it.

"Untether the biorhythm tracker from the shift." Rose said as she turned back to her crew, her eyes strangely out of focus.

"What?" they stammered.

Rose ignored them, began the process herself. "Untether it," she repeated.

It was a short shift, a time within spitting distance of the one she had just left. A sunny day, an innocuous street corner in London. She stood watching a blue car, Donna within, and the choice that was made. Simultaneously, as though through rippled heat waves impressed on the same image, she saw a woman in heavy green coat step in front of a lorry, change the traffic patterns, change the future.

"This is it," Rose said quietly, so certain for the first time in years that it made her chest ache with the security of it.

She returned, they sent her out again, she met Donna numerous times, each time letting on a little more until finally she told the other woman that she would die the next time they met. She hated saying it, knowing what this woman was to the Doctor, how brave she truly was.

Before what she knew would be the last shift, she told her team to prepare to return to their home universe.

"Did you find him?" Wolfram asked as Rose stepped into the circle of the time machine, rifleless as she had been for her last several trips.

"I will," Rose said. "Torchwood Tower, lock onto all personnel except Bad Wolf and bring them home," she said firmly into her comm and every face in the room looked up to her.

"What about you?" Wolfram asked, the question on the minds of everyone else.

Rose smiled, not the brilliant smile of the woman she had been two years ago, but an expression unmistakable as a smile. "I've got a Doctor's appointment," she quipped before standing at attention and saluting her team. The personnel all snapped to and did likewise, the science workers looked merely perplexed.

"Good luck," Wolfram said.

"Thanks," Rose replied and was gone.

The second her feet hit the pavement, Rose ran for Donna and crouched next her. "Tell him-"

Time unravelled around Rose though the street stayed in the same place, the buildings, the people. A shock wave of altered time emanated from the epicentre where Donna lay and into it, Rose concentrated, her eyes glowing, sending out the words to the universe, the only message she could hope to get to him. Bad Wolf blanketed every piece of paper, every sign, every flag along the ripples.

And Rose breathed hard, hope burning in her chest before she raised her comm to her lips. "Torchwood Tower, lock onto the Tardis signal."

-#-

The rest of the memories flitted by, the Doctor having been present for many of them. "You saved the multiverse," he whispered aside to Rose. She didn't respond save for a small smile. "No one has any idea what you did-"

"Sound familiar?" Rose asked and a grin slowly split his features.

"Come on," she said, taking his hand, "I think we're done."

-#-

The first sensation they had was one of hunger, the second was that their backs ached. Brilliant moon light shone down on them through the open Tardis doors where they sat before them. Everything else considered, the first thing Rose could think to do was kiss him.

For the first time, he had held nothing back and Rose felt overcome with her need to feel him, to express how much that meant to her. Similarly strong feelings were coursing through the Doctor along with the fact that he had never been able to resist a kiss from Rose Tyler. Still, a niggling thought appeared at the back of his mind even as she sat on his lap, forced him to lean back against the railing as she kissed him.

 _Rose_ , he said into her mind.

There was no response, her mindspace a chaotic jumble, overloaded with emotions and several hundred years of memories that hadn't been there a few hours prior.

Carefully, the Doctor pulled her back from her and started stifling her thought processes.

"What're you doing?" she said shakily, now breathing unsteadily in a way that had nothing to do with their moment of passion.

"Putting you to sleep," he murmured, hugging her to him as she started to go limp.

"No," she said softly, brow furrowed in confusion as her hands gripped at his suit jacket weakly.

 _It's been a lot for you, you need rest. It's okay, I'll still be here, you'll feel me. Just rest_.

And Rose remembered nothing more. The Doctor got to his knees and hauled her up with him, walked to their bedroom and laid her down. It hit him halfway there how tired he was, too, in a way he didn't remember being when he had done the ritual as a Time Lord. He lay beside her, felt her in his mind with no need to be guarded, and smiled as he drifted off.

-#-

They had always felt one another when they woke up in the mornings, but never in the way they did the afternoon they awoke after the binding. It was akin to the feeling they had when they were both in their flat or the Tardis. The other person was there, minding their own business but readily at hand should they be needed. The Doctor realised first that this would be a permanent state of affairs, that a part of her would live in his mind for the rest of his life and likewise a part of him with her. He felt Rose coming to and smiled, nuzzled at her where she lay against his chest.

Rose was slower to wake, her mind still full and adjusting. Her eyes gradually flickered open, took in the soft light the Tardis was giving them. Roaming the Doctor's chest with her hands, she breathed him in, adjusted to consciousness as she felt his lips against her forehead. It only hit her once she pushed herself up to look into his eyes.

"Hallo," he said softly, grinning the grin that had won her over after his regeneration.

"Hi," she replied weakly, looking back and forth between his eyes. "I can feel ya..." she trailed off. Again, the insufficiency of language might've bothered her, bothered them both, if not for the fact that they now sat comfortably in each others minds.

He was still grinning at her but there was something behind his eyes, something deep. He was scared but excited, saw the possibility of their relationship in a way he never had before. And it was dawning on Rose that they were connected, had both made the choice to do so and he could not, would not go swanning off with as much abandon as he would have in days past.

The thought made her grin.

"Can we have sex yet?" she asked, recalling where they had been interrupted by the need for a mental break.

"Uuuuhhmmm, no," the Doctor said and smiled when she looked grumpily at him, "best to lay off the excitement for a bit. Don't want to fry your synapses...or mine, for that matter."

"If we can't do that anymore, I'm suing you Time Lord lot for compensation," Rose stated, snuggling back down on his chest, his laugh shaking her pleasantly.

A comfortable silence stretched between them in which Rose smiled as she felt him think about making her coffee. Then, "where do you want to go?" His voice betrayed his excitement even as it drifted across their connection to Rose.

"Gallifrey," she whispered, "I want t'see the sky."


End file.
